DHS at the Children’s Program

1. Complete the DHS Child Referral form directly on our website →

2. Caseworkers will receive 2 emails the day the initial referral is received

1. The Caseworker will receive a Calendly invitation to select a time to schedule the evaluation appointments over the phone

2. The Caseworker will receive an email from Lobbie to complete 3 Consent forms and 1 Questionnaire related to the specifics of the child’s case and needs

If the Lobbie forms are NOT completed by the Calendly call time, we will not be able to schedule appointments so the Calendly call will be cancelled.

The 729 and/or 501A must be attached to the Child Referral Questions Form

The Funding Form must include the following billing codes and number of units

  • 90791 x 1
  • 96130 x 1
  • 96131 x 7
  • 96136 x 1
  • 96137 x 11
  • 99244 x 1

During the Calendly call we will schedule 3 appointments

    1. The Initial Consultation, which is conducted over the phone. Typically, this call is split into two 30-minute halves. The first 30 minutes is Caseworker and Clinician in conversation and the second 30 minutes is Resource Parent and Clinician. The child does NOT attend this appointment.
    2. The Evaluation is 3 hours of in-person testing, typically in the morning from 9am-12pm at our office:

6443 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy
Suite 300, Portland Oregon 97222.

For Children under 18months, the Caseworker can request a virtual evaluation. It is ultimately up to the Clinician’s discretion.

    1. The Feedback session is over the phone by default, but the Caseworker is welcome to create a Teams link and share it with everyone they invite to the meeting, including the Clinician. We especially recommend utilizing Teams if the Casework suspects there will be a large group in attendance. The child does NOT attend this appointment.

We recommend that the resource parent is on the Calendly call or that the caseworker discusses the Resource Parents’ availability if they are not able to attend the scheduling call.

 

After careful consideration by our DHS team, we have decided to no longer routinely offer sibling and parent-child interaction observations. While the courts request that interactions be completed, we have had ongoing concerns about their clinical validity. We often state as a disclaimer in our reports the general nature of these kind of interaction observations (i.e., a controlled, time-limited situation where the participants are aware, they are being observed), greatly limits our ability to draw bigger conclusions or to more definitively answer specific questions regarding relationship dynamics or relationship capacity in alternative settings (i.e., the home, community, etc.).

 

3.After we schedule the evaluation appointments, the caseworker will be connected to our DHS Portal.

View the Dashboard to submit additional documentation for the evaluated child.

The assessed child should be listed in the pulldown menu under Submit Documentation.

LOCATION OF EVALUATION

We do not typically travel offsite for evaluations (e.g., jails, prisons, inpatient or residential facilities); our evaluations generally take place onsite at our clinic. Therefore, clients must be able to be safely transported to our clinic.  On a limited basis, we have arranged contracts with various ODHS branches for a team of our evaluators to travel to their respective local branch offices to conduct evaluations onsite there, in lieu of having families travel to us. Certain clinicians are comfortable conducting virtual evaluations for children under 18 months, but this is ultimately at the clinician’s discretion.

CONTACT INFO

6443 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy, Ste 300, Portland, OR  97221

Phone:  503-452-8002

Fax: 503-452-0084

Email: dhsinfo@childrensprogram.com

This email address is mostly for caseworkers, but resource parents/other current caregivers can also have access so better coordination of appointments takes place.

AGE RANGE

We currently will see children from age 0-18 for “best interest”/permanency psychological evaluations. Other/more specialized assessments may be age dependent. Evaluation length may be dependent on the age of the child and the type of evaluation requested.

On a more limited basis, we are additionally able to complete parent psychological evaluations for adults who are involved with the child welfare system so long as their child is also being seen by us for an evaluation.  While we have many evaluators, who can complete evaluations with children, we currently only have one evaluator who is able/willing to see adults at this time.

TYPES OF EVALUATIONS

Our agency completes psychological evaluations for children ages 0-18, including best interest/permanency evaluations, neuropsychological testing (e.g., assessment of IQ/cognitive and developmental delays as well as attention and executive functioning skills), Autism evaluations, learning evaluations, gender evaluations (e.g., assessing gender/transgender presentations; gender dysphoria; readiness for gender affirming medical treatments), and eating disorder assessments. We will still complete parent-child & sibling interaction studies on a case-by-case basis and when deemed appropriate and clinically useful by the evaluator; however, we have, as a whole, reduced the frequency with which we do these.

On a more limited basis, we are additionally able to complete parent psychological evaluations for adults who are involved with the child welfare system so long as their child is also being seen by us for an evaluation.

Additional Areas of Expertise

In addition to our standard ODHS child welfare psychological evaluations (which typically are “best interest”/permanency evaluations), we are also able to complete neuropsychological testing (e.g., assessment of IQ/cognitive and developmental delays as well as attention and executive functioning skills), Autism evaluations, learning evaluations, gender evaluations (e.g., assessing gender/transgender presentations; gender dysphoria; readiness for gender affirming medical treatments), and eating disorder assessments.

Multi-Lingual?

While we do have at least one evaluator who is Spanish speaking, we are unable to currently conduct full evaluations in Spanish or other languages at this time.

Clinicians of Color?

We do have several different evaluators who identify as Persons of Color.

Links