Purpose of the website

This website has the downloadable visual and written resources referred to in the book. They are intended to be used as an adjunct to support the therapeutic work of the SUSI intervention and integrated with the therapeutic techniques described in Chapters 5 and 6.

These resources have been designed by practitioners in SLAM1 but are available in an editable form so that professionals have the option to make changes so that the handouts are relevant to the families they are working with.

The handbook describes the clinical assessment and intervention in detail, bringing to life the emotional worlds and communications of under 5s and articulates a tailored approach to support the parent-child relationship.2

1 South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

2 The term ‘parent’ is used, as in the book, to refer to the primary caregiver and attachment figure for the child, whether they are fathers, mothers, wider family members, foster or adoptive parents.

Overview

What is SUSI?

SUSI is a parent-child assessment and intervention for under 5s and their families - an accessible and flexible model for community multi-agency settings. The main features are:

  • A comprehensive assessment model (two sessions) to assess a child’s social-emotional development and the parent-child relationship.
  • Use of standardised assessments and clinical observations.
  • A tailored approach to focus on central issues affecting the parent-child dyad.
  • Short to medium term intervention: 6-15 sessions, depending on presenting needs (extended where longstanding difficulties).
  • Therapeutic techniques and intervention themes to focus the work.
  • Regular reviews and communication with the family and community network.

Resources

The below resources are customisable and adaptable to the specific circumstances the families you are working with. They are given here in an editable format so you can add or remove any parts that you think would make them most useful.

Handouts

These can be used as a starting point to help initiate conversation around the themes discussed in the book as part of the SUSI model.

Homework Sheets

These homework sheets provide some structure for families to express their experience and thoughts after face-to-face sessions.

Activity Templates

Examples of activity templates that can be created for individual use within the SUSI model.

Report Template

An assessment report template which can be used to summarise the assessment findings to share with the family (and network).

Feedback & Reviews

For any individual family, an exploration of the issues they are having to deal with will be an important part of finding solutions…this is typically termed an assessment but feelings of being judged often get in the way of assessment being truly helpful. One of the outstanding drivers in the development of the SUSI model is that it takes all of this into account. It is aimed to be supportive and informed in the design and delivery of the intervention but not to avoid the challenges that can come up along the way.

John Simmonds, OBE

Director of Policy, Research and Development, CoramBAAF

For our families, we were able to observe first-hand the differences in the parent/child relationships following the SUSI interventions. The feedback from parents was incredibly positive, reporting more confidence in their parenting and a closer relationship to their child.

Rhodie Thomas

Parental Mental Health Practitioner

This under-fives approach has validated my concern for the emotional well-being of babies and young children in difficult situations. It has also shown me how these problems can be assessed, understood and mitigated.

Dr Beatrice Cooper

Consultant Paediatrician

The book focuses on the centrality and variability of attentive parent-child interactions in optimising child development. It describes a coherent detailed, tailor-made engagement, assessment and therapeutic approach, building on principles rather than being a formulaic manual. The approach is both sophisticated and accessible. The book locates the necessary changes to parent-child interaction within the professional system, whose engagement is crucial.

Danya Glaser

Visiting Professor at UCL, Honorary Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist

SUSI has been extensively trialled as an intervention and has sought to be influenced by evidence as to its impact and effectiveness. And then added to this is the possibility of the model being used flexibly depending on the practitioner that is using it and the circumstances in which they are using it.

John Simmonds, OBE

Director of Policy, Research and Development, CoramBAAF

The assessments and interventions that were provided from the SUSI project proved enormously helpful to the parents…. I have also sharpened my own observational skills and try to think more about what is happening for very young babies, especially given early adverse experiences that can easily be dismissed.

Jane Kendrick

Adoption Social Worker

This training helpfully thought about ways to facilitate the more challenging conversations with parents whilst maintaining a supportive relationship. It was sensitive to the challenges they might be facing as parents whilst always keeping the child's needs in mind.

Rhodie Thomas

Parental Mental Health Practitioner

The SUSI work was a great resource - it made a real difference to the families for someone to offer targeted and focussed interventions without judgement.

Sarah Maris-Shaw

Parental Mental Health Worker/OT

SUSI really challenged professionals to be more forensic in our observations and expand our assessment skills. This supported us to really see the infant as an individual with unique needs, wishes and feelings and put younger children’s emotional wellbeing at the centre of our work. It also gave a framework for us to work with parents… and offer support and guidance.

Cathy Lloyd-Williams

Head of Service, Children’s Social Care

The one day IMH training, there was a real sense of listening to our team so that we felt we would be able to think about the families and help make a difference to their lives.

Sarah Maris-Shaw

Parental Mental Health Worker/OT
Contact Us

Training

If you are interested in training sessions about under 5s mental health and/or the SUSI clinical model, please get in touch at: [email protected].

The training programmes that have been developed, and will be adapted for online presentation, include:

Training in the SUSI assessment (as a stand-alone assessment/feedback approach)

This will cover the central components of the assessment, report-writing and feedback stages, and consider how this can be implemented within the local networks and community of the children and families. Professionals with a mental health background or already working within parent-infant/child mental health services may find it useful to do the training as a group, possibly joining with colleagues from other agencies they work closely with.

Training in the assessment and intervention approach

The sessions will include the assessment stages, described above, as well as the transition to the offer of treatment and the implementation of the intervention. It could include the process of reviews over the longer term if this was relevant to the client population and/or if the service wished to build in follow-up evaluation. As above, team training or cross-agency training may be helpful in order to think how the work can be supported at a local level.

A one-day under 5s mental health training (with follow-up learning sets)

This is a brief training for community workers in child and adult services who are interested to build on existing knowledge and consider how to integrate new ideas and develop their practice. Again, this may be helpful to do as team or a collaboration between agencies with a shared client population. For example, teams that have completed this are Community Family and Early Years workers, Contact workers, and Parental Mental Health practitioners.

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