Innovations in Practice: Piloting a new child and adolescent risk assessment suite in the UK.

Background: A prototype risk assessment suite (FACE-CARAS) was developed for use within CAMHS and evaluated for acceptability and reliability.

Method: Clinicians underwent brief training in the system and invited 69 young people to an assessment using the FACE-CARAS. A second rater produced a separate set of blind ratings for most patients. Clinicians also provided qualitative feedback.

Results: The component schedules of the FACE-CARAS could be reliably rated with 'near perfect' to 'moderate' agreement observed. Internal reliability consistency values, as indexed by Cronbach's alpha, were moderate to high in all cases.

Conclusions: The assessment schedules that make up the FACE-CARAS can be reliably rated by clinicians with minimal training.