Expert Witness
Dr Karen Shannon Associates (DKSA) provides a timely, efficient, reliable, personal, high quality, professional service.
DKSA has provided expert witness services in family, and criminal and proceedings since 1999. DKSA can provide references from solicitors who use the service regularly and are pleased with our responsiveness, our thorough easy-to-read assessments, and concise and clear conclusions and recommendations for multidisciplinary colleagues.
DKSA provides a specialist and comprehensive psychological and risk assessment service for adults with complex presentations in a range of family circumstances, and for solicitors and Local Authorities which can involve the following areas:
-  Personal Injury assessments & assessment of Trauma and associated psychological sequelae
- Assessment of adult mental health, psychological functioning, personality disturbance and disorder
- Psychological assessment of ability to protect children and risk assessment of carers, parents and their partners, in public and private family law proceedings (excluding parenting and attachment assessment)
- Psychological assessment of neglect / omission of care for children
- Risk assessment (including Structured Professional Judgment) of a range of offending behaviours. These include personality disturbance, sexual deviance, significant neglect, substance misuse, aggression / violence, and other offending history
- Assessment of parental mental health and / or learning disability, other mitigating factors and ability to provide good enough care and protection of children
- Assessment of suitability to engage in psychological therapy
- Specialist psychological intervention that focuses upon effecting change in psychological functioning, personality disturbance, and trauma related problems.
- Specialist intervention service for Non-offending Partners of offenders (NOPs), including protective skills.
- Full specialist neuro-psychological assessment and its impact on risk assessment and management
Our registered office is in Liverpool, where we began our practice and provision of services to North and Mid Wales and the north west of England, Ireland and the Isle of Man. We have recently expanded into the south east of England and can now provide Clinical Psychology services in UK and Ireland.
Clients can attend our head office in Liverpool and access our national consulting rooms as and when required. Alternatively the client can be seen at a location more convenient to them, such as their solicitor’s office.
All DKSA associates are registered with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) and are chartered members of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and are recognised within their field of psychological expertise. They maintain up-to-date Continuing Professional Development (CPD) including expert witness and courtroom skills and engage in Clinical Psychological practice (other than expert witness provision) appropriate to their Clinical expertise.
Aware of the short time demands experienced by instructing parties, DKSA always aim to meet those time constraints and meet file deadlines. Our quick response rate means that we respond within twenty-four hours to initial requests and will advise accordingly.
Cultural diversity is of paramount importance in our work and we are specialists in this area drawing on experts in relevant cultures and use of interpreters where appropriate.
Some of our Clinical Psychologists speak a range of languages including French and Russian, and this gives us an advantage over other psychology services as the need for interpreters is removed or heavily reduced.
