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Children and Young Person COP3 Mental Capacity Assessment
When applying to be a deputy for a child or teenager, the Court of Protection requires a mental capacity assessment to be completed by a health and social care professional, referred to as a COP3 report.
Assessing a child or young person’s mental capacity brings its own unique challenges. Our caring, innovative approach puts them at the heart of the process at all times.
Your Questions Answered
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What to expect
Our assessments usually take around an hour, and our friendly, experienced social workers do their best to make sure it's a comfortable and relaxed experience. We're accredited expert mental capacity assessors, so you're in good hands.
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What's Included in the assessment?
Everything necessary is included, an assessment either face to face or via video link as well as a corresponding report. Where necessary our Social Workers will complete additional assessments such as a Montreal cognitive assessment and a financial decision tracker to strengthen their reports at no additional cos
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Why Choose Nellie?
We have worked with official court solicitors to create a bespoke assessment report to assess and record the mental capacity of an adult to engage in court proceedings in the Family Court, the High Court, a county court, or the Court of Appeal.
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Who can complete a mental capacity assessment?
In cases involving complex or major decisions, you may need to get a professional opinion. The assessor must be an impartial, qualified professional, such as a doctor, nurse, or social worker.
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Can we complete video-link or face to face assessments?
With the implementation of the Mental Capacity Amendment Bill (2019), we continue to provide video-link assessments, albeit as a last option and with a valid reason, duly recorded as evidence within our court-compliant reports
Accreditations
Social Work England is a specialist body taking a new approach to regulating social workers in their vital roles. All of our Social Workers are registered with Social Work England for your peace of mind.
Our assessors are accredited Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) assessors with specific experience in completing capacity assessments and specialist reports.
All of our assessors have undergone extra training to become accredited financial vulnerability experts according to Lichtenberg standards, so they can provide even more detailed reports on mental capacity.
CASE STUDY
Lilly lived with a diagnosis of down syndrome; Lilly loved school and especially arts and crafts; Lilly's cross stitch was admired by the entire school. Lilly struggled with numbers and managing money; however, it didn't matter how complicated; she just couldn't quite get it.
Lilly's mum, Diana, always managed her money anyway, so it wasn't an issue; Lilly was only 16 years old after all. Lilly's mum did worry about what would happen about managing Lilly's money in the future, however, and contacted a local solicitor who agreed to act as a Joint Deputy with Diana ensuring Lilly had constant support throughout her life.
Diana initially approached her GP but was quickly told they were unable to help in completing the COP3 Mental Capacity Assessment. Diana's solicitor recommended Nellie Supports.
Our Social Worker attended Lilly's home after school to ensure she didn't miss any important lessons and sat with Lilly, talking about nice things such as holidays and who paid for them as well as some rather boring things such as shopping. Through just a normal conversation with Lilly and her Mum, our Social Worker was able to gauge Lilly's understanding of finances and, through the expert knowledge of where a child's understanding should be at Lilly's age, was able to make a determination, base upon the scale of probability, that Lilly wouldn't be able to manage her financial affairs now or later in life.
This allowed Diana and her solicitor to apply for deputyship and ensure Lilly had constant support throughout her life.
