Assessment & Admissions ProcessMaking A Referral - Assessment & Admissions

Once a Young Person has been successfully referred and the Service Level Agreement has been authorised by a professional or relevant body, ADO carry out an assessment which is an important ‘fact finding’ process to fully understand the presenting needs and requirements of each individual being referred. The assessment is stage three within our five-stage referral process.

The Assessment

Our assessments provide a quality of service to ensure that we have all the necessary information to meet or exceed the full expectations of all stakeholders. There are two parts to the assessment, the first being a digital assessment form which is completed by the most relevant caregiver to the Young Person.

The assessments are chargeable and must be paid in advance in most cases as follows:

Digital Assessment - £75  ♦ Two Day Practical Assessment  - £684  ♦ Combined Cost - £759

The Digital Assessment

The digital assessment follows on from the referral process. This step is only booked in if we feel upon reviewing the referral documents, we could meet the needs of the Young Person. This is an online process that enables the most relevant caregiver to give further information about the Young Person, including a brief history, any diagnosis if they are known to social services, any medical needs and whether the student has received any previous therapies or accessed psychological services. The information that is shared provides our professionals with an important insight into the individual in addition to all their official social or emotional mental health or medical history. 

In some circumstances, we may ask to have a follow up call with the caregiver to ask for further feedback after reviewing the assessment form, before the practical assessment.

The Practical Assessment

The Practical Assessment is based at our ADO River Valley School site at Poets Corner Centre, Welling. This is for the Young Person to attend for our full school day 9am-3:30pm. For the first assessment day, two adults-carers-professionals can attend and we recommend at least one being the professional who works with the Young Person and one parent-main carer. This is so we can see how the individual interacts with both adults.

At 11am on the first assessment day, both of the adults will leave the site. The Young Person will remain on site with us until 3pm, so they can have a real insight in to a day with ADO River Valley and can join in with lessons, activities and meet some of the other students and staff. The student will join in with lunchtime and would require collection at 3:30pm, when we finish for the day.

If the individual is struggling in the morning for any reason or does not wish to remain on site, then they can leave at 11am with the adults. As we assign our staffing based on the number of students on site, the fee for the day would still require covering via the invoice. The practical assessment will most importantly highlight the individuals reaction to risks, of which there are an abundance in our outdoor setting.

For the second assessment day, the individual will attend our setting and be absorbed into a ‘normal’ school day. This will help the individual and the staff obtain a fuller picture into whether they will manage at our bespoke setting.

Admissions

Once the assessments have been completed, all stakeholders will be informed of the outcomes and can then agree the next stages of the process. The Head of School will liaise with the team to determine how the sessions went. The Head will determine whether our site is suitable for the Young Person and whether we can ensure the safety, impact and wellbeing of the current students, ensuring they will not be affected. We will likely offer a place or an option to be on our waiting list, dependent on our capacity at that time. It may be deemed that our site will have too many risks for the individual, so it would not be suitable for them.

Sign-Off and Service Level Agreements

Once all stakeholders are happy to proceed, ADO will be in touch to confirm a start date and the ratio of support required, whether it is our standard 1:3 or the higher support of 1:1.

The professionals will be required to agree to our service level agreement, including terms for the methods of payment and net terms for payment. Once the SLA's are returned and signed by an authorised signatory, the admissions process can be completed.

Please Note: 

If a student is placed on 1:3 or 1:1 support, this will be reviewed daily and overall weekly to ensure that the ratio is still the most suitable level of support for the individual student. It is possible that students may go through periods of requiring 1:1 but then reduce back to a 1:3 ratio. We work with the students and the professionals-carers involved with each individual to ensure the best level of support for them on-going.

Get In Touch and Make A Referral!

 

There are 5 easy steps to make a referral. You can follow the steps HERE>

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