Autism and Learning Disabilities Team

What is it?

Local Services

Service Info

Autism diagnostic service for young people up to 18.
Therapies for autistic children, young adults & families.
Treatment adapted to meet unique needs of each family.
Professionals from social work, psychology & psychiatry.

Assessment Referral Form

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Here's more detail

Published: 15/10/23

(We are able to provide this information in any language you require or in other formats such as large text. Please speak to your clinician or email businesssupport@tavi-port.nhs.uk and we will arrange this.)

We provide two specialist services:

a multi-disciplinary autism diagnostic service for children and young people who have mental health needs and social communication and interaction needs up to the age of 18
psychological therapies for autistic children, young adults and their families and for those with developmental learning disabilities. The therapies service is for children, young people and adults up to the age of 25

What to expect

The autism diagnostic service offers a collaborative diagnostic assessment for young people in North Central London and Hertfordshire. We usually see adolescents and young adults, with some parts of the assessment process taking place in schools/colleges as appropriate. The assessment includes brief post-diagnostic psycho-educative support where relevant.

Our treatment service for people with learning disabilities and autistic children, young adults and their families include psychodynamic psychotherapy, family therapy, group work and a limited number of brief interventions (e.g., cognitive behavioural approaches, solution focused approaches, etc). Approaches are adapted to meet the unique needs of each person and their family. Treatment is offered at the main Tavistock Clinic site.

Referrals for treatment services are for people who already have a diagnosis of either autism or learning disability or both. We will always begin with an assessment to explore the reasons for referral further and how we may be able to help. As part of the assessment, we may meet with the professional network and discuss how best the network might work together to support the child or young person. Any care plan is agreed with the child, young person and their family as appropriate.

We also offer consultation and professional development support to our colleagues in education/training, community Child and Adolescent Mental Health services, local authorities, GP surgeries and the voluntary sector.

Who you’ll meet

The Autism and Learning Disabilities Team includes staff and trainees from the following backgrounds: social work, speech and language therapy, psychological therapy, child and adolescent psychotherapy, family therapy, psychology and psychiatry.

Contact and location info

Team Administrator: 0208 938 2668 9am-5pm Monday to Friday

General enquiries: ALD@tavi-port.nhs.uk

Referrals: Phone us on 020 8938 2241 if you would like to refer someone to our service. We do not currently accept self-referrals or referral directly from families.

Please be aware that GPs who can refer directly to Tavistock & Portman services are able to refer to a Referral Assessment Service (RAS) via the Electronic Referral Service. To locate the Autism and Learning Disabilities Team on eRS, enter the following in the search fields:

Service name: Autism and Learning Disabilities – Tavistock & Portman NHSFT

Priority: Routine

Speciality: Mental Health – Child and Adolescent

Clinic Type: Not Otherwise Specified

Organisation of Site Name field: Tavistock and Portman

A copy of our assessment referral form is also on our website.

Parent Story

Waiting List Parent Story
“We were on the waiting list for around a year and a half. Because our child was feeling very low and there were shared worries about them perhaps hurting themselves, we were offered access to a clinical social worker throughout our wait time. This gave us a contact person who we could go to when things felt unmanageable or where our worries about our child’s wellbeing increased. The clinical social worker also supported our child’s school to consider and implement strategies to help them access learning.
This same professional let us know what else was available for us whilst we were waiting to be seen. For example, there were two groups in our local area we could attend during this waiting time and while these groups were not focused specifically on autism, they did support us to manage some of the difficulties we were facing. One was a group for both parents and their children, and children and parents were each provided a separate space for support. Initially, the communication about these local groups (i.e., what to expect and what it might involve) was a bit poor, but still the experience was vital and the delivery was excellent.
We only received specific information and strategy ideas focused specifically on Autism after our child received their diagnosis. We found the report and the follow up work supportive. Throughout the time we were waiting and then getting seen, we felt some level of comfort in the knowledge that we were connected to the Tavistock, should worries about our child or other members of the family increase at any point.”