Referral process

Before a CYPNP referral is made, the following information needs to be discussed and collected in partnership with your referrer:

• Evidence that a child/young person may have differences related to Autism and/or ADHD in multiple settings.
• Evidence that both home and educational settings are implementing appropriate support strategies and reasonable adjustments to support a young person without the need of a formal diagnosis.
• There is a clear rationale for an assessment to take place (what difference will it make)?
  • Does the young person want an assessment to support their own understanding of themselves?
  • We cannot accept requests for an assessment where the rationale is to gain access to support. The Somerset system provides support on a needs-basis therefore a diagnosis is not necessary to gain access to support.
    • For more information, please see the guidance below

Somerset’s SEND Local Offer have created advice and guidance around the Pre-assessment pathway.

These documents have been developed in collaboration with education, health and care colleagues as well as parent carers, children and young people. They have been developed to support education settings, practitioners, and parent carers so that everyone better understands the pre assessment pathway.

The link to these documents can be found on Pre Assessment Autism and ADHD Pathway – Somerset Council.

Once the evidence mentioned above is gathered, the CYPNP Next Steps Form should be completed in partnership with your referrer to request an assessment.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept referrals completed and sent to us by parents/carers.

The most up-to-date version of this form can be found on the Neurodevelopmental Next Steps Form – Somerset Council.

If your young person is currently attending an educational setting:

• If your child/young person attends an educational setting, we would highly recommend that the referrer is a professional who can provide evidence of needs relating to neurodiversity as well as evidence of the graduated response to support.
• Any practitioner working with the family puts a referral in place (such as GPs, CAMHs, Paediatrics, CYPTS, Family Therapy Services, Family Intervention Service, Children’s Social Care), where possible we would expect that they get in contact with the child/young person’s school to gather the educational information required, prior to the referral being made. If we do not have this information, unfortunately we may not be able to accept the referral.

If your child/young person is electively home educated:

• If your child/young person does not attend an educational setting, another professional/practitioner who is working with your family (such as GPs, CAMHs, Paediatrics, CYPTS, Family Therapy Services, Family Intervention Service, Children’s Social Care) can be your referrer. In these cases, school information is not essential for us to triage your referral.
• If you do not have any professionals working with your family, Somerset’s Parent/Carer Forum can act as your referrer.

All new requests for a neurodevelopmental assessment are screened by the CYPNP administration team to check that all the information that is required has been completed. Our administration team will get in touch with the referrer if additional information is required before the request is sent onto CYPNP’s clinical team to be triaged.

Occasionally we will receive requests where we will require additional information or a discussion with a multi-disciplinary team to come to a decision.

We cannot give a timeframe for how long it will take to triage new referrals.

Accepted referrals

If our clinical team concludes that there is sufficient information to support a neurodiversity assessment, an acceptance letter will be sent to the child/young person’s parent/carer, school and GP. They will be added to our waitlist for an assessment using the date the referral documents were received by the CYPNP.

Once accepted onto our waitlist, we will not be in contact again until we are ready to start the assessment. We cannot give a timeframe for when an assessment will start.

Declined referrals

If our clinical team concludes that there is insufficient information to support a neurodiversity assessment, we will write a bespoke letter explaining our decision alongside professional advice and signposting to appropriate services where appropriate. The child/young person will then be discharged from our service.

If further information is gathered that suggests a neurodiversity assessment would be helpful, we would be happy to consider a re-referral.