A Model for Assessment

This document brings together information which will help you to work with other agencies to meet the needs of all children in North East Lincolnshire. It will help you in identifying when a child may have unmet need(s).

This model offers:

• A structure for consultation, co-ordination and co-operation to promote children's welfare;
• A framework to identify when a child may be at risk of poor outcomes;
• A process to assess risk to enable staff to balance vulnerability with protective factors;
• A structure for delivering integrated support to children which safeguards and promotes their welfare.

North East Lincolnshire's Model of Children's Needs is based on the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families and is consistent with LSCP Procedures. The model provides a framework to develop a common understanding amongst professionals of children's needs/vulnerabilities, shared assessment procedures and a platform for integrated working.

See also: The Thresholds of Need Document.

• Child-centred;
• Rooted in child development;
• Focused on outcomes for children;
• Holistic in approach;
• Involving children and their families;
• The child's welfare and safety are everyone's responsibility;
• Multi and Inter-agency approach for all children with additional needs - not just those who are in need of protection;
• The skills and knowledge of other agencies should be fully utilised;
• The rights of parents and carers must be considered;
• Agencies need to work together to reduce duplication and unnecessary intrusion into family life;
• Building on strengths as well as identifying difficulties;
• A continuing process, not an event;
• Providing and reviewing services;
• Social Inclusion and meeting the needs wherever possible within universal locally based services;
• No one must be discriminated against on the grounds of age, gender reassignment, sex, race, religion, culture, sexual orientation or ability;
• Families given the opportunity to find their own solutions;
• Full, accurate and comprehensive information must be collated as part of any assessment. A chronology of historical information is a tool to understanding social history and family functioning.

Assessment requires you to gather information and form professional judgements about a child's needs and the ability of the family to meet those needs within any given set of circumstances. At times, this will also require you to consider the likely level of risk to a child where there are concerns about the circumstances the child is living within. It will also enable you to identify when the child is at risk of poor outcomes. The principles of professional curiosity should also be applied. See: North East Lincolnshire Professional Curiosity Tool.

The diagram below illustrates the process of assessment.

The first part of any assessment is to gather information. Using the assessment framework domains you will need to consider where additional support or intervention is needed if the child is to be kept safe, experience healthy outcomes and to ensure that their developmental needs are adequately met. 

When undertaking an analysis of the information gathered, the first thing to do is identify those factors which are causing you to be concerned that a child may be at risk or harm or at risk of poor outcomes: Using the risk matrix it will identify historical harm and current harm and distinguish whether those historical harms still exist.

Risk/Vulnerability Factors are defined as those in the child's world which are likely to increase the likelihood of harm occurring, these include:

• Lack of protective factors;
• Inadequate analysis of change;
• Compounding factors emanating from environment and family relationships;
• Lack of resilience and wellbeing.

Protective/Resilience Factors are those factors in the child's world that may be seen as containing a protective component, these include:

• Relatives, adults who provide care within the wider family network;
• Positive experiences;
• Positive attachment;
• One supportive parent;
• Sibling support;
• Good social skills and intelligence.

Whereas vulnerability is increased by the presence of risk factors, the presence of protective factors provides the potential for increased resilience.

Once protective and risk factors have been analysed, the process requires an assessment of the likely outcomes of these factors on the child. Finally, the analysis must consider what needs to change if the level of risk is to be reduced? This brings you into action planning.

Children and families may experience a range of needs at different times in their lives. All children including children with unmet needs require access to high quality universal services. Some children are at risk of poor outcomes. These are children with unmet needs, and they will require targeted support from education, health, youth inclusion support programmes and other services. A smaller proportion of children have more significant or complex needs who may benefit from assessment and or intervention by statutory/specialist services.

You must remember that the principle is to work with families at the lowest level of intervention to safeguard the child and promote their welfare and that responses can escalate or reduce based on intervention and changing circumstances.

More information on indicators are outlined in the Thresholds of Need Document.

The child's plan must be subject to regular interagency review in partnership with the child (if old enough) and the family. The plan must outline what needs to change for the child to achieve their potential and what the agencies and the family will do to help the child achieve this. As a child's needs are met, practitioners should vary their responses accordingly. For examples once the child's needs are met through a child protection plan, a conference will normally decide to discontinue the plan and offer support through a Team Around the Family (TAF) plan. The child’s plan must include the child or young person's priority as they may be different to a professionals or parent/carers priority. 

These are children / young people who make good overall progress in all areas of development. Broadly, these children receive appropriate universal services, such as health and education leisure facilities, housing or voluntary services.

Local authorities, under section 10 of the Children Act 2004, have a responsibility to promote inter-agency co-operation to improve the welfare of children.

In North East Lincolnshire, we have a partnership approach to providing support for children and families through a multi-agency partnership early help strategy. This allows the child and family to be supported by the right agency at the right time.  Early help partnership practitioners support the partners in developing TAF’s and good quality Early help assessments.

See also: Early Help Support and Referral Policy.

Early Help is more effective in promoting the welfare of children than reacting later. Early Help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in the child's life, from the foundation years through to the teenage years. It is the responsibility of all professionals involved in supporting children and families to deliver Early Help and to aid the child and family in accessing the appropriate support to meet their needs.

Universal services and children's families are best placed to identify where there may be additional unmet needs that can be met through an Early Help approach.

Effective Early Help relies upon local agencies working together to:

1. Identify children and families who would benefit from Early Help;
2. Undertake an assessment of the need for Early Help (via an Early Help Assessment);
3. Provide a targeted, multi-agency package of support that may include targeted Early Help services to address the assessed needs of a child and their family.

This refers to children, young people, and families who have been assessed as having additional needs which cannot be provided purely by universal provision.

When a child needs a package of support, experience shows that they and their family benefit from having one person who can help them through their journey and ensure they get the right services at the right time.

Key functions:

• A single point of contact - giving children, young people and their families a trusted person to support them and communicate without jargon;
• Coordinate services - so that effective action is properly planned, delivered and reviewed;
• Reduce overlap and inconsistency - to ensure a better service experience and outcome.

This smaller group of children / young people require intensive help and support to meet their needs. This group includes those children who require an assessment to determine whether or not they are, Children in Need those that have been assessed as Children in Need and those who may be at risk of suffering significant harm.

You should undertake an assessment using the Threshold of Need, balancing risk, what you are worried about, with protective factors, what is working well, to evidence and confirm whether the child has complex needs which would benefit from an assessment by a Children's Services Social Worker (see Thresholds of Need Document) to assist in undertaking your assessment. For further guidance about how to report a concern, see SaferNEL, Report a concern.

The following list provides indicators of complex needs:

• Disability (with a permanent and substantial impairment of function);
• Life threatening medical conditions;
• Significant emotional and behavioural difficulties or significant mental health needs;
• Children and young people who are homeless;
• Involved in alcohol or substance misuse;
• Children whose parents/carers have a physical or learning disability, have mental ill health, are seriously ill or misuse substances such that is impacting upon their parenting;
• Young Carers;
• Long term neglect which can be evidenced as having a significant impact on child's physical health, emotional wellbeing, or development;
• Living in a situation where there is serious or repeated domestic abuse;
• Living in a situation where an adult carer is subject to MAPPA registration;
• Experiencing harassment on the basis of race, gender, culture or sexuality;
• Living in families where there are serious family relationship problems;
• Children whose behaviour has been sexually harmful;
• Children who are/go missing;
• Children whose parents are experiencing difficulty in providing a reasonable standard of parenting;
• Previously subject to Child Protection Plan;
• Children who are being sexually/criminally exploited.

Some children are in need because they are suffering, or likely to suffer, Significant Harm. The Children Act 1989 introduced the concept of significant harm as the threshold that justifies compulsory intervention in family life in the best interest of children and gives Local Authorities a duty to make enquiries to decide whether they should take action to safeguard or promote the welfare of a child who is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.

The court may only make a care order or supervision order in respect of a child if it is satisfied that:

• The child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm;
• The harm or likelihood of harm is attributable to a lack of adequate care or control (s31).

The following list provides a guide for all children where Children's Services have a statutory responsibility:

• Children who are unlikely to reach or maintain a satisfactory level of health or development, or their health and development will be significantly impaired, without the provision of services;
• Children who are subject of a Child Protection Plan;
• Children subject to Care Order or Supervision Order;
• Looked After Children;
• Children for whom adoption is the plan;
• Children remanded into the care of the Local Authority Accommodation or Youth Detention Accommodation;
• Children who are Privately Fostered;
• Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (see also Children from Abroad, including Victims of Modern Slavery, Trafficking and Exploitation Procedure).

This table includes those children where there is a need for immediate safeguarding as they may have suffered or be at risk of suffering significant harm. These children would require an immediate referral to Children's Services for consideration social work assessment to be completed to better understand their needs.

• Children at immediate risk of suffering significant harm, including physical, sexual, emotional harm and Neglect (see Working Together to Safeguard Children, Glossary);
• Children with unexplained injuries, suspicious injuries or where there is an inconsistent explanation of the injury;
• Children from families experiencing a crisis likely to result in a breakdown of care arrangements;
• Where there are serious concerns regarding the risk of suffering significant harm to an unborn child (see North East Lincolnshire Pre-Birth Protocol);
• Children who are remanded;
• Children who are engaged in criminal activity (refer to YOS);
• Children who allege abuse;
• Vulnerable children who are left alone;
• Children whose parents are unable to provide care whether for physical, intellectual, emotional or social reasons.

The child's "experience" should be considered, families where there is "low warmth/high criticism", are particularly vulnerable.

Children's Services is the lead agency for undertaking Section 17 and Section 47 Enquiries.

If you are in any doubt or would like to discuss particular concerns, contact your line manager or the Customer Service Centre.

See Information Sharing Guidance.

North East Lincolnshire children services use a single Assessment process which is known as the Child and Family Assessment.

This summary guide provides an overview of the continuum of needs of all children in North East Lincolnshire. It provides guidance on the key concepts and processes in working with children, young people and their families according to their needs.

It is acknowledged that decisions about how and who is best to meet a child's needs are based on information available at the time of decision making, individual professional judgements. Professionals are encouraged to discuss concerns openly with their own agency line manager or with Children's Services. (If in doubt consult). Further support to resolve any professional concerns can be found via the North East Lincolnshire SCP Professional Resolution and Escalation Procedure.