Assessment

If a child has a health or development need or their Welfare requires safeguarding the Minister must cause a wellbeing assessment to be made (see Statutory Guidance – Levels of Need). A lead worker will be allocated, the lead worker plays a critical role in preparing, managing and co-ordinating a wellbeing plan. In most cases the lead worker, will be a social worker. In some cases, (where a child has a health and/or development need) the lead worker may be a paediatrician or practitioner from Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS).

Where a child or young person has a child protection plan, they will have an allocated social worker as their Lead Worker (see Statutory Guidance on Safeguarding the Welfare of Children).

The Wellbeing Assessment must be undertaken in accordance with the Jersey Children Law 2002, Jersey Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2022, the commensurate Statutory Guidance and the Jersey Children’s First (JCF) Framework. Practitioners must follow the Statutory Guidance on sharing information (which follows the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018) and follow SPB Child Protection Procedures and the SPB Children and Young Person Safeguarding Referrals Procedure.

Wellbeing Assessment for children with health or development or safeguarding need will:

• Ensure the voice of the child is heard and recorded throughout the assessment process;
• Enable a collaborative assessment where children, young people and their families are encouraged to participate;
• Encourage and promote practitioner analysis;
• Strengthen reflective and reflexive practice and supervision;
• Strengthen the use of research in practice and analysis;
• Recognise the importance of early, and outcome focused, planning in interventions;
• Aid the creating and sustaining of positive relationships with children and families, where the relationship is seen as the context within which change can take place;
• Ensure clarity for children, their families and other involved practitioners in relation to the reason for Children’s Social Work involvement;
• Promote sustained improvements to the quality of life for children and their families;
• Ensure the assessment process is accessible for all involved;
• Promote transparency at all stages.

This chapter provides an overview of the Wellbeing Assessment process for Children with health and development need or where steps are required to safeguard and promote their welfare. When carrying out a health or development assessment practitioner should use the eight wellbeing indicators to structure their assessment. The eight Wellbeing Indicators are:

ID JCF 11 Wellbeing Indicators.pdf (gov.je)

These are the basic requirements (included in the revised Children and Families Plan 2024 – 2027) that all children will have equal opportunity to grow, develop and reach their full potential. Children will progress differently, depending on their circumstances, but every child has the right to expect appropriate support from trusted adults to allow them to develop as fully as possible across each of the wellbeing indicators.

High quality assessments are:

• Child centred (where there is a conflict of interest, decisions are made in the child's best interests);
• Rooted in child development and informed by evidence;
• Focused on action and outcomes for children;
• Holistic in approach, addressing the child's needs within their family and wider community;
• Made to ensure equality of opportunity;
• Made in a way which involve children and families;
• Built on strengths as well as identifying difficulties;
• Integrated in approach;
• A continuous process not an event;
• Made in a way which lead to action, including the provision and review of services;
• Transparent and open to challenge.

The Wellbeing assessment process involves gathering and analysing relevant information, reaching professional judgements which enable decisions and planned interventions. Assessment should take place in partnership with children, families and other practitioners. Intervention and service delivery should be founded on good quality assessment which becomes the baseline for further assessment, evaluation and review of outcomes.

Assessments are a dynamic process, which analyses and responds to the changing nature and level of need and/or risk faced by the child. And as an essential component of good practice, good assessment facilitates the monitoring and recording of the impact of any services delivered to the child and family and aids the review of the help delivered. Assessments are not standalone events and should be seen as an essential part of undertaking quality multi-agency work with children and families. Whilst services may be delivered to a parent or carer, the assessment should be focused on the needs of the child and the evaluation on the impact any services are having on the child.

The assessment should establish:

• The nature of the concern and the impact this has had on the child or young person;
• An analysis of their needs and/or the nature and level of risk and harm being suffered or likely to be suffered without intervention;
• How and why the concerns have arisen;
• What the child's and the family's needs appear to be;
• The least intrusive way to offer support to the family;
• Whether the concern involves abuse, neglect and exploitation, and to what extent;
• The impact and influence of wider family, any other adults, as well as community and environmental circumstances;
• Whether there is need for any urgent action to protect the child, or any other children in the household or wider community;
• Whether there are any factors that may indicate that the child is being or has been criminally or sexually exploited, which requires further action;
• Any factors that may indicate that the child is or has been trafficked or is a victim of Modern Slavery (see SPB Chapter Modern Slavery and Child Trafficking);
• Any factors that may indicate the child has been exposed to radicalisation (see SPB Chapter Radicalisation). This list is not exhaustive.

The Continuum of Children’s Needs provides practitioners with a tool to base their decision making on around risk to the child.

Practitioners must consult with children and young people (where possible) to understand and take notice of their views (see SPB Jersey Respecting the voice, experience and expertise of children). Children and young people should be actively involved in all parts of the assessment process which should be based upon their age and developmental stages. Direct work with the child and family should include observations of the interactions between the child and the parents/caregivers.

Children and young people should be seen on their own (where possible). They should be heard and their thoughts, wants and wishes included in their assessment (age and ability led). All children irrespective of development and capacity have ways of communicating, this is not only through verbalisation, but also through their body language or through behaviours. Practitioners must find ways of capturing the voice of the child, using single agency or multi agency tools to help capture their voices and advocacy where required.

Practitioners should be alert to children who present with trauma based behaviours and use trauma informed practice such as Brook or the Trauma Recovery Model.

Where the child’s communication should be understood in the context of their family and community, as well as through their presenting behaviour. Practitioners should remember that children and young people who have been traumatised, often do not verbally disclose, and may not be able to describe the abuse, neglect or exploitation they have experienced (particularly where age, disability or barriers to communication create additional barriers).

It is important that the impact of what is happening to a child is clearly identified and that information is gathered, recorded and checked systematically. This should be discussed openly and honestly with the child or young person and their parents/carers, where safe and appropriate to do so. Service provision should be regularly reviewed to understand the impact on the child, and their views gained to evaluate and inform this.

The assessment will involve drawing together and analysing available information from a range of sources, including existing records, practitioners in relevant agencies and others in contact with the child and their family. Research has demonstrated that taking a systematic approach to assessments using a conceptual model is the best way to deliver a comprehensive analysis. A good assessment is one which investigates the domains set out in the My World Triangle.

The My World Triangle provides a model, which should be used to examine how the various aspects of the child’s life and context interact and impact on the child. It is important that the impact of what is happening to a child is clearly identified and that information is gathered, recorded and checked systematically, and discussed with the child and their parents/carers where appropriate.

Key principles underpin the approach to assessing a child or young person and their families. They are important in understanding the development of the framework and in considering how an assessment should be conducted. Child Centred Assessments should be:

• Grounded in evidence based knowledge;
• Culturally sensitive and inclusive;
• Strengths based, whilst clearly identifying need, risk and harm;
• Carried out alongside provision of multi-agency services;
• A dynamic continuing process - not a single event;
• Conducted in parallel with other actions and whilst providing resources.

Plans should be:

Child Centred - Use of the framework should provide evidence to help, guide and inform judgements about children’s welfare and safety from the first point of contact, through the processes of the assessment, according to the nature and extent of the child’s needs. The provision of appropriate services need not, and should not, wait until the end of the assessment process, but should be determined according to what is required, and when, to promote the welfare and safety of the child.

Communicated - The aims are to reach an analysis about the nature and level of needs and/or risks that the child may be facing within their family and/or community.

Collaborative -The assessment will involve drawing together and analysing available information from a range of sources, including existing records, and involving and obtaining relevant information from practitioners in relevant agencies and others in contact with the child and family. Where wellbeing assessments have already been completed, these should be used to inform the assessment. The child and family's history should be understood. When added information becomes known or circumstances change, any previous conclusions should be critically reviewed to ensure that the child is not overlooked.

Co-ordinated - Where a child engages in other assessment processes, it is important that these are coordinated so that the child does not become lost between the different agencies involved and their different procedures are not duplicated. All plans for the child developed by the various agencies and individual practitioners should be joined up so that the child and family experience a single assessment and planning process, which shares a focus on the outcomes for the child.

Consistent - The children’s social worker should analyse all the information gathered from the assessment, to decide the nature and level of the child's needs and the level of risk. Social workers should have access to high quality supervision from a Line Manager/Senior Practitioner who will help explore possible hypotheses as part of this process. Critical reflection through supervision should strengthen the analysis in each assessment. An informed decision should be taken on the nature of any action required, and which services should be provided. Social workers, their managers and other practitioners should be mindful of the requirement to consistently understand the level of need and risk in a family from the child's perspective and provide a robust multi-agency response to maximise outcomes for the child.

All agencies and practitioners involved with the child, and the family, have a statutory responsibility to contribute to the assessment process. This might take the form of providing a JCF chronology of information in a timely manner and direct or joint work.

All practitioners working with the family should be involved from the outset and through an agreed, regular process of review.

The social worker’s supervisor will have a key role in supporting the practitioner to ensure all relevant agencies are involved.

Agencies providing services to adults, who are parents, carers or who have regular contact with children must consider the impact on the child of the needs of the adult in question.

Every assessment should be focused on outcomes, deciding which services and support to provide to deliver improved welfare for the child and reflect the child’s best interests. During the assessment, the social worker and their line manager should determine:

• If the child requires support with their health and development;
• Is there reasonable cause to suspect that this child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, Significant Harm? See SPB Jersey Article 42 Enquiries);
• Is this a child in need of accommodation? (Article 17 Children (Jersey) Law 2002);
• Where a child may have been physically abused, suffered neglect or sexual abuse if consideration must be given to following the Child Protection Medical Pathway and/or the Child Sexual Abuse Pathway.

The possible outcomes of the assessment should be decided on by the social worker and their line manager, who should agree a plan of action setting out the services to be delivered, how and by whom, in discussion with the child and family and the practitioners involved.

The outcomes may be as follows:

• No further action;
• Wellbeing assessment with an identified lead worker and team around the child;
• The development of a multi-agency health and development plan for the child or young person;
• Specialist assessment for a more in-depth understanding of the child's needs and circumstances;
• Undertaking a Strategy Discussion/Meeting, to consider whether an article 42 Child Protection enquiry is required;
• Emergency action to protect a child.

The outcome of the assessment should be:

• Discussed with the child and family and provided to them in a format they can understand. Exceptions to this are where this might place a child at risk of harm or jeopardise an enquiry or Police investigation;
• Taking account of confidentiality, communicated to practitioner referrers;
• If given in writing to agencies involved in providing services to the child with the action points, review dates and intended outcomes for the child stated.

The assessment plan must set out timescales for the actions to be met and stages of the assessment to progress, which should include regular points to review the assessment. The work with the child and family should ensure that the agreed points are achieved through regular reviews. Where delays or obstacles occur, these must be addressed and the assessment plan must be reviewed if any circumstances change for the child.

The social worker’s line manager must review the assessment plan regularly with the social worker and ensure that actions such as those below have been met:

• There has been direct communication with the child alone and their views and wishes have been recorded and considered when providing services;
• All the children in the household have been seen and their needs considered;
• The child's home address has been visited and the child's bedroom has been seen;
• The parents have been seen and their views and wishes have been recorded and considered;
• The analysis and evaluation have been completed;
• The assessment provides unmistakable evidence for decisions on what types of services are needed to provide good outcomes for the child and family.

Decision points and review points involving the child and family and relevant practitioners should be used to keep the assessment on track. This is to ensure that help is given in a timely and appropriate way and that the impact of this help is analysed and evaluated in terms of the improved outcomes and welfare of the child.

Recording by all practitioners should include information on the child's development so that progress can be monitored to ensure their outcomes are improving. This is particularly significant in circumstances where neglect is an issue.

Records should be kept of the progress of the assessment on the individual child’s record and in their chronology to monitor any patterns of concerns.

Assessment plans and action points arising from plans and meetings should be circulated to the participants including the child, if appropriate, and the parents.

The recording should be such that a child, requesting to access their records, could easily understand the process taking place and the reasons for decisions and actions taken.

Practitioners should have access to regular Internal agency safeguarding supervision.

Supervision records should reflect the reasoning for decisions and actions taken. The supervision/management decisions pertaining to the child should be placed on the child's file.

Practitioners will have different experiences of working with the child and family and understanding these differences actively contributes to the understanding of the needs of the child, young person and their family.

Complex cases, cases which are stuck, or drifting should be brought initially through single agency supervision and where agencies should then consider using multi-agency reflective supervision.

Professional challenge should be welcomed, and differences of professional opinion resolved speedily, best done through conversation or supervision. Local arrangements for resolving professional differences should be used. See the Resolving Professional Difference/Escalation and Resolution Pathway.

Delivering Effective Support for Children and Families - Understanding the Continuum of Children's Needs Procedure

Children and Young Person Safeguarding Referrals Procedure