Working together for children
Delivering a diverse, reliable range of services to children and their families across the UK
JOIN OUR PROFESSIONALS
We are the UK’s leading provider of social work and psychological services, and our reputation is built on the quality of the professionals who register with us. If you have the skills, qualifications and experience, contact us today.
Join Willis Palmermake an enquiry
We have a diverse range of multi-disciplinary professionals providing social work, psychological and therapy services to children and families. Established for over 16 years, WillisPalmer delivers a high quality, reliable service. Contact us with your requirements.
Make An EnquiryTRAINING COURSES
WillisPalmer has been providing a range of exceptional training courses for professionals working with children and families over the past 16 years. As well as our suite of training courses, we also provide bespoke training courses to meet your needs nationwide.
Book TodayTo protect and promote the welfare of children
As a social work owned and operated company, we place the needs of children and their families at the centre of everything we do.
WillisPalmer has established an unrivaled reputation as the leading provider of multi-disciplinary services to children and their families. Our multi-disciplinary, national network is made up of social workers, psychologists, qualified therapists, psychiatrists, family support workers and forensic risk assessment experts – who are available to undertake assignments throughout the UK and overseas. What’s more, we can provide a range of solutions bespoke to your needs, including training and mentoring services.
We ensure the delivery of a diverse, reliable range of services across the children’s services sector. Our track record of high-quality service provisions to local authorities, solicitors and other organisations alike spans sixteen years.
Did you know? We do all the work for you. Upon referring to us, we source the best-matched assessor for each case; once you have instructed us, we can start immediately. We offer a fixed fee price, so you always know what you will pay – with no hidden extras.
Alongside this, we provide a comprehensive quality assurance process and check all reports twice. Therefore, when commissioning work through WillisPalmer, you know that you will receive exceptional quality reports, every time.
We ensure the delivery of a diverse, reliable range of services across the children’s services sector. Our track record of high-quality service provisions to local authorities, solicitors and other organisations alike spans sixteen years.
Did you know? We do all the work for you. Upon referring to us, we source the best-matched assessor for each case; once you have instructed us, we can start immediately. We offer a fixed fee price, so you always know what you will pay – with no hidden extras.
Alongside this, we provide a comprehensive quality assurance process and check all reports twice. Therefore, when commissioning work through WillisPalmer, you know that you will receive exceptional quality reports, every time.
About the Network
WillisPalmer has a national network of over 300 professionals providing social work and psychological services. Our team comprises highly experienced expert social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, family support workers and forensic risk assessors.
ABOUT USJoin Our Professionals
Our reputation is built on the quality of the professionals who register with us. WillisPalmer has exceptionally high standards to ensure we deliver excellent, focused, quality assured, child-centred social work and psychological services to our clients.
JOIN OUR TEAMOur multi-disciplinary managed services
WillisPalmer has established an unrivalled reputation as the leading provider of multi-disciplinary services to children and their families.
Independent Assessments
WillisPalmer has an extensive team of expert social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists and family support workers who are trained and experienced to carry out independent assessments of children and families.
We have been providing independent assessments for local authorities, courts and independent organisations for 16 years.
Our expert Independent Social Workers undertake a wide range of assessments including PAMs Parenting Assessments, Sibling Assessments and Fostering Assessments while our trained psychologists carry out Assessment of Psychological Functioning, Cognitive Assessments and Education Assessments.
WillisPalmer offers therapeutic services and assessments to young people and their carers and Forensic Risk Assessments for those involved in intra-and-extrafamilial sexual abuse.
As a genuinely multi-disciplinary organisation, we also carry out multi-disciplinary assessments of children and families.
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Multi–disciplinary
WillisPalmer provides a unique, genuinely multi-disciplinary approach to the welfare of children and families.
Our multi-disciplinary teams, made up of expert workers including independent social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, educational psychologists, therapists and family support workers provide bespoke cost-effective packages of care to vulnerable families and those experiencing often complex difficulties where children may be at risk of entering care.
Under the Multi-Disciplinary Family Assessment Service, professionals work alongside families in their own homes over an eight week period to introduce new ways of communicating and managing problems. An evidence-based report is produced after eight weeks with recommendations and conclusions.
The Multi-Disciplinary Family Restoration Service uses a multi-disciplinary approach to families where children are at risk of entering care.
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Family Support
Family support workers provide focused support to families with complex needs in a bid to improve parenting capacity, adult capacity for employment and educational attendance of children, as well as decreasing negative behaviours.
WillisPalmer has experienced family support workers who can work with families experiencing difficulties and help them to change behaviour and improve communication and their parenting to keep families together.
We provide our evidence-based, cost-effective, time-limited, bespoke packages of care for families experiencing difficulties - our Multi-Disciplinary Family Assessment service (MFA) uses the expertise of family support workers, particularly when children may be at risk and need 24 hour monitoring.
WillisPalmer also provides a genuinely Multi-disciplinary Family Restoration Service to work with families to prevent children going into care.
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Residential Homes
WillisPalmer provides a range of services to residential children's homes.
Our experienced and highly skilled expert social workers and psychologists carry out audits and provide consultancy and advice to residential homes regarding service improvement. We can provide experts to carry out assessments of need of children and young people.
Our psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists can also provide therapy services for children and young people undertaking play or art therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or Life Story Work. In fact, we offer a range of therapy services to children and young people.
As an independent organisation with 16 years experience, WillisPalmer also carries out Regulation 44 independent visits to ensure residential homes meet Ofsted requirements.
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Education & Well-being
WillisPalmer works with schools providing safeguarding advice, consultancy and help with children’s behavioural and emotional problems. We can also help educators access a broad range of training on issues from child protection to understanding complex behaviour.
WillisPalmer provides safeguarding surgeries - an opportunity for safeguarding leads and/or class teachers to talk through safeguarding concerns with an experienced children's social worker. Our expert social workers can help schools make referrals to children’s services.
WillisPalmer offers a Behavioural and Emotional welfare surgery - a comprehensive school-based mental health programme offering advice and intervention on behavioural and emotional issues presented in school children.
We also provide expert educational psychologists to undertake assessments in schools and advise on emotional and social problems or learning difficulties.
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Child Abuse Litigation
When a claim is being made against an organisation in respect of potential negligence and the way a child care case was handled, there are five critical elements where WillisPalmer can help claimant and defendant solicitors.
Our team of expert social workers can provide expert opinion on whether the care and protection provided was what could be expected for the time. 1) High quality full expert reports. 2) Preliminary Reports - to assist solicitors and the decision-making process. 3) Chronology - a fair and balanced chronology. 4) File Preparation - record preparation completed. 5) Capacity to Instruct - our psychologists can advise whether your client has capacity to instruct on a case.
WillisPalmer provides an impartial and neutral service to both defendant and claimant solicitors across the UK.
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Therapy
Therapy is an integral part of the services that WillisPalmer offers to children and families. Children and young people who have experienced abuse or neglect often benefit from participating in talking therapies - psychological treatments for mental and emotional problems such as anxiety and depression. However, when children find it difficult to articulate their experiences, feelings and emotions, they can benefit from an arts/drama/play therapy.
Families can also often benefit from therapy to tackle deep-seated problems or help them to achieve change within the family setting.
WillisPalmer offers a wide range of therapeutic interventions and assessments to children or children and families and has a range of qualified and experienced therapists to work with children and families.
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Advice & consultancy
At WillisPalmer, we believe the child's best interests should be at the heart of everything we do.
We are keen advocates of service improvement and offer a variety of services aimed at helping local authorities, independent organisations, private businesses, residential homes and schools to protect the welfare of children.
WillisPalmer provides a mentoring service for local authorities and social workers, bespoke tailored packages of consultancy and advice for a range of organisations around service improvement as well as auditing case records to provide a report on the quality of assessments. Our expert social workers and psychologists who are highly trained and have many years experience ensure that work is carried out to the highest standard.
Read MoreMake an enquiry
WillisPalmer provides a variety of psychological and social work services including assessments, expert reports and an array of therapeutic services. Our multi-disciplinary models provide intervention to support vulnerable families.
Our Training Courses
WillisPalmer has been providing training to professionals who work with children and their families for over 16 years. See our upcoming training courses below.
View allImproving Practice in Communicating with Children and Young People
DATES TBC – Stratford Circus Arts Centre, London
This 1 day workshop aims to increase the competence and confidence of participants in working effectively with children for different purposes and across a range of settings when their opportunity for contact is limited.
Developing Analytic Skills in Report Writing
This workshop will look at what makes analysis a different process from information gathering and focus on the skills involved. The approach will be experiential and give participants the opportunity to use video as source material in composing an analysis of what they observe.
The Impact of Mental Illness on Parenting Capacity
This course helps you understand the link between symptoms of mental illness, parental behaviour and the impact of such behaviour on children. It examines the key principles in assessing the impact of mental illness on parenting capacity.
Knowledge & Resources
Keep abreast of the latest news in the children's services sector.
£7m funding for charities supporting children affected by COVID-19 and lockdown measures
Vulnerable children and families affected by COVID-19 and the measures put in place to stop its spread will benefit from support offered by a coalition of charities under a new ‘See, Hear, Respond’ Department for Education programme.
The government has provided £7m of funding to launch the service which will be led by the charity Barnardo’s [...]
Are you a foodie or a fitness fanatic? The groups emerging during lockdown
While it is inevitable that most of us have probably endured our fair share of wobbles during lockdown, given the fact we have never experienced anything like this before, people have naturally had to adapt their mindsets to navigate their way through social isolation.
I’ve noticed a number of ‘groups’ emerging.
The fitness fanatics
Walking, jogging, running – [...]
Blog: Abuse during lockdown
WillisPalmer Chief Executive Mark Willis says all professionals working with children need to be ultra vigilant in looking for signs of abuse as we ease out of lockdown.
Children’s services professionals need to be vigilant for signs of emotional, physical and sexual abuse in young people as children return to primary school following lockdown, the chief [...]
