BERRI - Improving Outcomes for Children (A clinical evaluation tool)
The BERRI is an outcome measure developed by LifePsychol Ltd. It aims to provide an overview of children’s psychological needs and wellbeing. The assessment tool also measures their outcomes in relation to characteristics relating to type of care.
A recently completed study funded by Innovate UK involved collecting data on nearly 1,000 young people in care by LifePsychol in collaboration with the Anna Freud Centre, facilitated by the Commissioning Alliance, allowing access to gather data through their service provision. As part of this project, several papers on the BERRI have been written around its psychometric properties and also on longitudinal changes in scores in relation to COVID-19-related events.
Meryl Westlake is in her second year of her PhD at UCL studying the BERRI measure further, including the standardisation of the measure across a community sample and the measure’s discriminant validity. Meryl is also writing a qualitative paper on the care leavers’ experiences of life events.
Related publication: Viziteu, A. D., da Silva, L. C., Edbrooke-Childs, J., Hillman, S., Silver, M., Westlake, M., & Harju-Seppänen, J. (2024). Testing the structure of the BERRI using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Children and Youth Services Review, 156, 107353.
Chief investigators: Dr Saul Hillman and Dr Miriam Silver