Starship Paediatric Consult Liaison Psychiatry

The Paediatric Consult Liaison team provides psychological and emotional assessment and support to tamariki and rangatahi under the Starship medical and surgical services and their whānau. It is located on level three of Starship Children’s Hospital.

The types of problems they can help with include:

• Adjusting to, and coping with, illness or injury
• Emotional and/or behavioural problems in a child with illness or injury
• Treatment adherence problems e.g. fear of needles, special diets, difficult treatments
• Management of complex pain in children and adolescents
• Feeding difficulties
• Parental and whānau difficulties coping with a child’s illness especially where the illness or treatment is challenging or complex
• Grief and bereavement counselling related to a child’s illness

 They offer a range of interventions including:

• Assessments
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy
• Child therapy and counselling
• Child behaviour management
• Family work/intervention
• Medication
• Neuropsychological assessments

The team consists of:

• Child Psychiatrists
• Clinical Psychologists
• Neuropsychologists
• Psychotherapists
• Nurse Specialists

This service liaises closely with the child’s Starship medical or surgical team and also with any other involved service e.g. General Practitioner, School, Physiotherapist or Special Education Services.