Children’s Acquired Brain Injury Consultation Service

Who are we?

The Children’s Acquired Brain Injury Consultation Service (Children’s ABCS) is a regional service that was established in 2012. It is a multi-professional team designed to support existing services, to recognise and respond to the needs of children and young people after an acquired brain injury.

What is an acquired brain injury?

An acquired brain injury (ABI) is damage caused to the brain after a period of normal development. Such damage can arise from a number of issues, some of which include:

• traumatic brain injury (TBI)
• circulatory disorders
• interruptions of oxygen supply to the brain (e.g. near drowning)
• central nervous system (CNS) infection (e.g. meningitis)
• tumour and associated treatments (e.g. radiation)

What do we do?

Children’s ABCS is a service-facing service, which means we provide a consultative support for professionals who are offering input to children and young people (and their families) after an ABI. Children’s ABCS provides support via:

• Information development and provision
• Delivery of training regarding ABI
• Consultations regarding children presenting with ABI-related difficulties e.g. poor attention, difficulties with organisation or mental health issues, which may involve:
  – Making recommendations on evidence-based treatment approaches
  – Advising on educational planning
  – Signposting on to other relevant services (e.g. in the voluntary sector).

Children’s ABCS does not provide direct child assessments or carer support. Our role is to offer support to the services working with these children and their carers with the aspiration of upskilling existing services to feel more confident and competent in working with this clinical group. Children’s ABCS works in partnership to provide support, advice or consultation to any service supporting a child with an ABI in Northern Ireland. This includes support to universal and specialist services within the health and social care, education and voluntary sectors, including all children up to age 19 who are in receipt of children’s services.

We are also engaged in evaluating improvements in the provision of services to children and families post-ABI and have contributed to national elearning resources see: http://www.e-lfh.org.uk/home/

What can you expect after you have contacted Children’s ABCS?

A member of the multidisciplinary team will contact you after your initial contact and will clarify what support would be most effective, and how this could be arranged.

We provide a rolling calendar of training across the region and we can also offer bespoke training for specific service’s needs.

Referral Forms

Consultation Referral Form
Training Referral Form