Assessments are a newer Relate innovation and emerged during Covid when we simply had a flood of requests for emergency appointments and it was often unclear in an email or intake phone call just what help the couple might need.  Our Senior Team began offering Assessment sessions available at shorter notice so we could do an initial meet with couple to find out what they needed and what we could recommend to help them stabilise more rapidly.   Using a combination of online resources, targeted interventions, referrals and follow ups we found we were able to increase our capacity to respond to couples in relationship distress.