About the Public Beta
The Phoenix Encyclopaedia and Phoenix Atlas are living resources.
We are releasing them in public Beta so practitioners, families and others can use them, challenge them and help us make them better.
What Beta means
The core resources are ready to use, but they are not finished forever.
During public Beta we will:
- expand coverage;
- refine search and connections between entries;
- review and strengthen evidence summaries;
- respond to errors and omissions;
- improve accessibility and usability; and
- learn from the people using the resources in real settings.
Changes made during Beta will form part of the continuing development of Phoenix.
How we approach the Phoenix Encyclopaedia
The Phoenix Encyclopaedia starts with presentation rather than diagnosis.
People do not always arrive knowing the clinical, educational or professional language for what they are seeing. They may simply know that a child cannot get through the school gate, becomes overwhelmed when plans change or seems unable to begin a task.
The Encyclopaedia is designed to begin there.
Its entries help users become more curious about what they are seeing, consider different explanations and find routes towards appropriate support.
It does not diagnose.
How we approach the Phoenix Atlas
The Phoenix Atlas explores interventions and approaches that might help.
It does not rank interventions or prescribe a route.
Evidence is considered through the Phoenix Evidence Picture:
Research · Fit · Practice · Rationale · Young person experience · Real-world delivery · Safety & agency
This means asking more than whether an intervention appears to work.
We also ask what changed, for whom, in which context, at what cost, where risk went and what became more possible for the person.
Atlas charts the landscape. Practitioners choose the route.
Evidence changes
Research does not stand still.
An Atlas or Encyclopaedia entry represents our best attempt to interpret relevant evidence and practice at the time it was reviewed. New research, different interpretations and lived experience may challenge what we have written.
That is part of the purpose of public Beta.
Where something needs correcting, we will correct it. Where evidence is uncertain or contested, we aim to make that uncertainty visible rather than manufacture certainty.
Safeguarding
Some presentations described in the Phoenix Encyclopaedia can occur alongside abuse, neglect, exploitation, significant mental distress or other safeguarding concerns.
An individual behaviour does not establish that harm has occurred. Patterns, context and changes over time matter.
If something you encounter through Phoenix adds to a safeguarding concern, follow your organisation's safeguarding procedures, share the concern with the appropriate safeguarding lead and keep accurate records.
If someone is in immediate danger, use the appropriate emergency service rather than relying on this website.
Help us improve it
We want to know when:
- you cannot find what you are looking for;
- a search leads somewhere unexpected;
- an intervention or presentation is missing;
- evidence has moved on;
- something is unclear or inaccessible;
- your professional or lived experience challenges what we have written; or
- we have simply got something wrong.
Curiosity applies to Phoenix too.
We expect the resources to become stronger because people challenge them.