The process, benefits and challenges of providing psychological consultation in adoption services

Psychological consultation is one way of reaching a greater number of families with limited resources, yet little is known about the benefits and challenges of this intervention in adoption. We qualitatively explored consultations provided to adoption social workers by clinical psychologists. Six social workers and four clinical psychologists participated in semi-structured interviews. Five themes with supporting sub-themes were identified: (1) A context of highly emotive work with scarce resources; (2) consultations draw on Dyadic Developmental Practice and systemic thinking and involve goal-oriented and interpersonal processes; (3) consultations experienced as valuable despite challenges; (4) consultations facilitate learning for both social workers and psychologists; and (5) a collaborative focus and the 'expert role'. Our findings suggest consultation is experienced positively by social workers and psychologists, that it successfully facilitates the transfer of psychological knowledge, and has the potential to enhance multi-agency working. Future research needs to better understand the impact of consultation on adoptive families.