Expert Witness

Areas of Expert Witness Expertise:

Dr Karen Shannon Associates (DKSA) provides a timely, efficient, reliable, personal, high quality, professional service.

DKSA has provided expert witness services in family, civil 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:

Psychological, Risk Assessment of adults in family, civil and criminal proceedings.

We work within the LAA benchmarking rates for family proceedings in the following areas:

Forensic

• Psychological and Risk assessment (including Structured Professional Judgment)of a range of offending behaviours including: domestic violence, cyber violence, aggression/violence, stalking and harassment, contact sexual offending and downloading indecent images of children.
• Psychological and risk assessment of carers, parents, and their partners risks posed to children (excluding attachment assessment and assessment of children).
• Psychological Intervention for offending and risk behaviours
• Psychological intervention which focuses upon effecting change in psychological functioning – personality disorder, trauma related problems and to increase ability to protect children or decrease the risk posed to children.

Clinical

• Psychological Assessment of ability to protect, care/parent.
• Neglect/Omission of care for children
• Impact of Mental health problems on psychological functioning and ability to parent
• Psychological assessment of dependency and abuse of alcohol and/or prescribed/non-prescribed drug use and impact on risk assessment and parenting ability
• Ability to work with professionals.
• Assessment of personality disorder and impact on psychological functioning
• Assessment of Post-Traumatic stress/Acute Stress/Adjustment or pain disorders and complex trauma
• Self-harming behaviour
• Consultation with staff groups who work with complex cases, challenging & risky behaviour.
• Capacity to change
• Assessment of suitability to engage in psychological therapy & recommendations.
• Specialist in Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)
• Personal Injury assessments & assessment of Trauma and associated psychological sequelae

Our registered office is in Liverpool City Centre, 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.

Clients can attend our head office in Liverpool or be seen remotely if this is preferable. 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.