We are based in Huddersfield. Please see our contact page for more detail on our exact location.(https://www.socrates.org.uk/contact-us)

Yes.

All you need to do is contact us either by telephone, email or using our contact us form.(https://www.socrates.org.uk/contact-us) After that initial contact we will provide more details about the service you are interested in, costs, availability to get started and we proceed from there.

We offer a wide variety of services. Simply contact us (https://www.socrates.org.uk/contact-us)for more information on the service you require and we can provide the relevant cost.

Yes, we accept all major credit and debit cards as well as Apple Pay.

Yes, many of our clinicians are registered providers with various medical insurers such as Aviva, BUPA, Cigna, Vitality, WPA and more. We have a great deal of experience in dealing with insurers and if you have questions simply contact us for further advice and information.

Please contact us as soon as possible to let us know if you would like to cancel an appointment. Cancellations with less than 24 hours’ notice before the appointment or non-attended appointments without any prior notice are charged at the full price.

After you have contacted us and indicated you wish to proceed, our duty team of experienced clinical psychologists allocate you to an available clinician or team who are best suited to you, your preferences, and the type of issues you are dealing with. Our clinicians have different approaches and areas of focus, so it's important to find the right person who is best placed to work with you and achieve the best outcome for you.

All of our clinicians are fully qualified, DBS checked, experienced and registered with the appropriate professional and governing bodies. Please see our team page (https://www.socrates.org.uk/meet-the-team)for more details on all our clinicians as well as our well-regarded admin team who will assist you throughout your time with us.

Whilst you can request to see a particular therapist, our duty team will consider the availability of all clinicians as well as your own particular needs and which clinician would be best placed to meet those needs. As a result, you may contact us about seeing one particular clinician, but after discussion with us you may end up seeing a different clinician who is more suited to your needs or has sooner availability.

As with any treatment, it is impossible to guarantee that therapy will achieve the goals you set collaboratively with your treating therapist. However, in general terms our outcomes page (https://www.socrates.org.uk/outcomes-and-testimonials)shows that the overwhelming majority of our clients see meaningful and positive changes after using our service. As you would expect no two people and their respective experiences are the same. Our clinicians work collaboratively with you to understand the difficulties including what caused and maintains those difficulties, which is key to forming a deeper understanding of what is going on. In turn, this then informs the therapy process. Our clinicians have experience of a wide variety of issues and therapy models, please see our therapy page for more details.(https://www.socrates.org.uk/assessment-and-therapy)

Yes, we can offer remote therapy. However, it is not always appropriate or helpful to undertake therapy remotely. The therapist you see would be able to advise you after the initial assessment if there are good reasons why remote therapy is not recommended for you.

All of the conversations and appointments that you have with us are confidential and we do not communicate with other people about you without your permission. The only exceptions to this relate to risk and legal issues. If we are really concerned about your level of risk to yourself, then we cannot keep that confidential and we have to share it in order to keep you safe. In exceptional cases, access to records may be ordered by legal authorities, or allowed by us without consent, when failure to do so would place the client or others at serious risk of harm. Examples here would include the risk of homicide or suicide or serious abuse of children, vulnerable adults or the general public.

Therapy sessions usually last from fifty minutes to one hour. Occasionally, we might agree shorter or longer sessions with clients for clinical reasons.

This varies significantly between individuals, their needs and the type of therapy undertaken. At your first appointment, called an initial assessment, you can discuss your goals and aims with your therapist and a more meaningful estimate can develop from there. These goals will be monitored with you regularly during your therapy and you are of course free to stop therapy at any time you wish. If your therapy is being funded by an external body such as private health insurance, that body may dictate how many sessions can take place.

Our experience is that because our detailed multi-disciplinary autism assessments follow the guidelines set out by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) (https://www.nice.org.uk/Guidance/CG128)the assessments are recognised and accepted by a wide variety of private and public bodies. Furthermore, over many years we have been contracted by various NHS Trusts to provide hundreds of autism assessments. In the rare circumstances our clients have encountered difficulties we have provided full assistance in responding to questions and resolving any misunderstandings.

Help at school is based on need, in addition to the diagnosis. You can speak to the school about how your child might be able to get extra help before or after a diagnosis. In situations where no diagnosis is made, there may still be specific recommendations made that would assist the school in helping your child. It is important to identify and tailor support strategies to meet an individual’s needs as what works for one child, may not for another. If a child appears to be achieving well academically, they may still need extra emotional and social support. With the proper consent we can send a copy of our report to the school. In our experience our assessments have been used when applying for an Educational Health Care Plan (ECHP).(https://www.gov.uk/children-with-special-educational-needs/extra-SEN-help)

We typically offer, although we cannot guarantee as it depends on caseload, an initial screening appointment within 4 weeks of you confirming you wish to proceed. After that first screening appointment the full assessment process usually begins and the whole process to conclusion typically takes a number of months, though of course each and every assessment is individual and so some may be longer or shorter dependent on the circumstances.