Description and evaluation of a brief workshop run by child psychiatrists for a group of speech therapists to help them in their work with disorganized families from a deprived city area

Summary Speech therapists working with children in a deprived inner city area expressed concern to the local child psychiatrists that they were used to ‘fill gaps between families and other services in the absence of either the time or the appropriate training, and were unable to use their skills appropriately’. This paper describes three afternoon workshops run by child psychiatrists in which the speech therapists explored some of the issues involved in seeing disorganized families with disturbed children. The effectiveness of the workshop is evaluated and it is postulated that other primary care workers such as health visitors might benefit from similar workshops.