'Someone to talk to who'll listen': Addressing the psychosocial needs of children and families

The paper presents the Lewisham Community Child and Family Service (LCCFS), a community-based intervention providing psychosocial help for children, y oung people, parents and families. The service is focused on early interven tion, prevention and promotion in the improvement of local health. It works under a service framework based on inter-agency collaboration, and a couns elling model based on community and interpersonal partnerships, grounded in personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955). The policy demands and local need for accessible and acceptable mental health an discussed, and quantitative and qualitative findings of the needs assessment preceding the establishme nt of the LCCFS are presented, supporting the need for community mental hea lth provision. The feasibility for the LCCFS to reconcile and meet the poli cy demands and the needs of parents with respect to child psychosocial help and services are discussed. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.