The Choice Point
Reaching a Choice point is the essence of the Choice process. To restate is is the joint agremment made by the clinicla, young person and family about what the issues are and what they want to do together.
What is an adequate Choice point?
For us, a Choice Point is a direction of travel, a goal that orientates the work and can be later evaluated for outcomes. It can be very specific, such as to make a dog phobia manageable; complex, as being at normal weight (of course whose goal this is - is interesting!) or rather more vague, such as trying to figure out why the family argue so much. The test of a goal is - can the receiving Partnership clinician begin to work with the family rather than have to start all over again? Of course a goal or care plan isn’t fixed: it can get changed, refined or more detailed as time goes on…
Sometimes it can be difficult to decide if offering Partnership is the right step. Here are 9 factors that can influence whether it would be helpful to offer Partnership work:
- Are the goals clear?
- Are they in distress?
- Is there any indicated effective treatment?
- Should CAMHS do this?
- Is their motivation high?
- Have they made little progress on their own?
- Is the situation very risky?
- Do the family have limited resources of their own?
- Are we adding some value to the other agencies (i.e. not duplicating)?
It may be interesting to think these and others through in your own team…