Dear Nick

My single case study involved gaining verbal consent from the (looked after) child, who was at the time aged 7 and written consent from the social worker.  i also asked for the consent of the long term foster carer, but don’t think it was actually needed.  Quite a few child psychotherapy students at the Tavistock have done their doctorates on work with looked after children and I think the Tavi, under Margaret Rustin’s guidance came up with a protocol to gain ethics approval.   I suspect Jocelyn Catty or Jenifer Wakelyn may know more as they are currently involved with the research programme.

Best wishes

Annie Coyle
Child Psychotherapist, Somerset
On 10 Jun 2015, at 17:31, Barbara Milrod <bmilrod@med.cornell.edu> wrote:

> the child also needs to "assent" in writing
>
> ________________________________________
> From: list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org <list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org> on behalf of Geoffrey Goodman <Geoffrey.Goodman@liu.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 10:11 AM
> To: caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org
> Subject: RE: CaFTR gaining consent for clinical research with looked after children
>
> Hi Nick,
>
> In the US, the only consent you need is the legal guardian, which is the state, because birth parents and foster parents do not have legal rights with respect to the child.  But the state (in New York, the agency is called Administration for Children's Services) almost never consents for research, so most of us have given up studying children in foster care.  I tried to mount a study in the late 1990s with such children and got nowhere.  That has been my experience and the experience of many of my colleagues here in New York.  Others' experiences in other US states might be different.
>
> Geoff
>
> Geoff Goodman, Ph.D., ABPP, FIPA, CST, CSAT-S, CMAT-S
> Associate Professor
> Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program
> Long Island University
> 720 Northern Blvd.
> Brookville, NY 11548
> (516) 299-4277
> http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/ggoodman/home.htm
> ________________________________________
> From: list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org [list-manager@psychotherapyresearch.org] on behalf of Nick Midgley [nickmidgley@btconnect.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 5:54 AM
> To: caftr@psychotherapyresearch.org
> Subject: CaFTR gaining consent for clinical research with looked after children
>
> Dear colleagues
>
> I'm currently setting up a study evaluating a clinical intervention for looked after children. I'm aware that there are quite complex issues around gaining consent with this population (incl. consent from local authorities, foster-carers, birth families as well as the young people themselves), and considerable challenges in doing this in a timely way, if the study is a clinical one and we don't want to delay access to services.
>
> Is there anyone out there who has experience in this area who'd be willing to share their experiences? Our study is in the UK, but would be interesting to hear about situation in other countries too.
>
> Please post back-channel directly to me, if you prefer - although could post to the forum too, as others may be interested to hear about how these issues are handled.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Nick
>