6

Organisational Arrangements to Support Effective Assessment of Children in Need

6.1 This chapter considers the organisational arrangements which should be in place to support effective practice in assessing children in need and their families. A key longer term measure of success of the Assessment Framework will be evidence of improving outcomes for children as described in the Government's Objectives for Children's Social Services (Department of Health, 1999e). Another measure is whether the timescales set out in the objectives for undertaking initial and core assessments and responding to referrals are met. Chief Executives of local authorities have overall responsibility for ensuring that all departments of their authority play their part in achieving these objectives (Department of Health and Department for Education and Employment, 1999).

Government's Objectives for Children's Social Services

6.2 The White Paper Modernising Social Services (Department of Health, 1998e) set out the Government's objectives for both children's and adults' social services, together with objectives common to both on user involvement and training. A consolidated version of the Government's objectives for children's social services, incorporating more detailed sub-objectives, targets and performance indicators was published in September 1999. They outline the social services role, and what they are expected to achieve together with other agencies in the community for some of society's most disadvantaged families and most vulnerable children. This and other work has made clear that targeted help is required to ensure that disadvantaged children and young people are able to take maximum advantage of universal services - in particular education and health - as well as any specialist services.

6.3 In addition to working with children requiring support from social services, the Government believes that local authorities have a corporate responsibility to address the needs of a wider group of disadvantaged children, defined as children at risk of social exclusion. These are children who would benefit from extra help from public agencies in order to make the best of their life chances. To this end, there should be effective joint working by education, social services, housing, leisure and health. Social services alone cannot promote the social inclusion and development of these children and families. However, as part of a corporate endeavour, in partnership with others, social services can play a vital role.

6.4 Local authorities have to work closely with the NHS to ensure that shared objectives for children's services - particularly in areas such as services for disabled children and child and adolescent mental health services - are delivered effectively. The targets for child welfare in Modernising Health and Social Services : National Priorities Guidance (Department of Health, 1999j) are incorporated into the Government's objectives for children's social services.

6.5 A comprehensive performance assessment system based on the Best Value regime has been put into place to monitor the delivery of all social services and progress towards the objectives, priorities and targets set out by the Government. This includes in-year monitoring information, end-year performance data and in-depth evaluation through inspections and Joint Reviews. A set of 50 performance indicators were confirmed in July 1999 after a wide-ranging consultation exercise and 13 of these were designated statutory Best Value performance indicators in December 1999. Baseline data for 35 of the indicators were published in Social Services Performance in 1998-99 (Department of Health, 1999k).

6.6 Elected members have a vital role in ensuring that the corporate responsibilities of local authorities are carried out. This was emphasised in a joint Department of Health/Local Government Association communication to local government councillors:

As a councillor, you need to be involved in setting strategic objectives for children's services and monitoring how health care, education and life chances are improving for children who are looked after by your council, or who are in need of support in your community (Department of Health and the Local Government Association, 1999).

6.7 Good partnerships with the voluntary and private sector are also important to the delivery of the Government's objectives. In children's services, voluntary and private organisations are important providers of services. In addition to the family based services they already provide, they have a role in representing the voice of service users and carers, and in developing new and fiexible approaches to service delivery. Local authorities should make sure that such organisations are fully involved in implementing the Assessment Framework.

6.8 Good assessment of the needs of children and families plays an important part in meeting the Government's children's social services objectives, by enabling needs to be identified at an early stage, so that services and support can be provided before problems escalate. The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families will assist all agencies in making judgements about which children are in need and how best to help them.

Children's Services Planning

6.9 Children's Services Planning should provide the local vehicle for determining how the contributions of all the relevant agencies fit together and support each other in delivering shared objectives for vulnerable children and, in particular, children in need (Children's Services Planning Order, 1996). It is the Department of Health's intention to issue new guidance on planning for children's services which will address joint working towards these objectives.

6.10 A prime purpose of the children's services planning process is to ensure co-ordination and coherence across local planning arrangements for children and to improve the outcomes and efficiency of the services provided. Planning for children's services should ensure that local objectives in different plans are consistent and support each other. It is important to reduce duplication of planning effort. A balance has to be struck between ensuring that the separate policy intentions behind each set of plans are preserved and that planning is not carried out in separate compartments.

6.11 Fundamental to this will be effective information systems which identify the needs of local children and the nature of services required to meet those needs. Social services departments have an important contribution to make in this respect, in line with their responsibilities under the Children Act 1989:

 

Every local authority shall take reasonable steps to identify the extent to which there are children in need within their area. Children Act 1989, Schedule 2, Part 1, paragraph 1 (1).

6.12 Record keeping and the aggregation of data from case records is a critical part of providing an information base for planning purposes. The assessment recording forms (Department of Health and Cleaver, 2000) have been designed to provide the means by which good quality data can be collected and aggregated by social services departments. They can be adapted for use by other agencies working with children, often the same children in need. A common recording system not only ensures data are collected in a consistent manner across agencies, but also facilitates communication about the particular needs of a child and about the needs of all children in an area.

6.13 These records will also provide a means by which supervisors and managers can monitor the quality of practitioners' work with children and families. They will enable them to monitor compliance in implementing the Assessment Framework. This monitoring is an integral part of the overall quality assurance process which departments should have in place.

Departmental Structures and Processes

6.14 The way in which a social service department is structured and the processes it uses to process requests for advice or information, referrals and further work with children and families should be organised to support staff responding to these requests and undertaking assessments of children in need within the required timescales. One example of how a department has organised itself was described in paragraph 3.6.

6.15 The formats for recording information about individual children and their families and the systems by which this information will be used for management and planning purposes will also make a significant contribution both to the effectiveness by which assessments of children in need can be undertaken and to the processes by which the appropriate services are planned and delivered in a local authority area, regionally and nationally.

Departmental Protocols and Procedures

6.16 Departmental procedures, and intra- and inter-agency protocols between adult's and children's services and between agencies involved in work with children and families respectively, which are consistent with the Assessment Framework, will facilitate working within social services departments and across agency boundaries. These should assist in reducing the amount of time spent on duplicated or unfocused work. These should not only benefit children and families but also achieve efficiency in this area and to contribute to Best Value in local government services.

6.17 It will be important to be explicit about expectations regarding staff having knowledge of and using the Assessment Framework when partnership arrangements, which include undertaking assessments, are being agreed between agencies. Similarly, when service level agreements are being drawn up, it will be essential for the social services department to be clear about it's expectations regarding the use of the Assessment Framework when, for example, a voluntary or independent agency is undertaking a specific type of assessment with a child and family.

Commissioning Specialist Assessments

6.18 There will be circumstances, where a specialist assessment will be necessary to provide information to social services departments when they are undertaking a core assessment. This is in addition to information that would normally be available about a child from other agencies in the community or information that is known as a result of a previous or current assessment.

6.19 In deciding who to commission to undertake a particular specialist assessment, social services should be clear about what type of assessment is required, for what purpose, within what timescale and who or what agency/professional is best placed to undertake it. This careful planning of specialist assessments not only contributes to the quality of the individual child in need assessment but also to the effective use of available resources. Local inter-agency protocols should provide guidance about how to commission specialist assessments, and who will implement the decision(s).

6.20 When commissioning a specialist assessment, it is important to ask questions which are within the remit of the particular professional to answer. For example, when a parent is being treated for alcohol addiction, it is appropriate for a social services practitioner to ask for an adult psychiatric opinion on the likelihood of the parent being able to stop or reduce his or her drinking, and the impact of the parent's addiction on behaviour, but not necessarily to ask whether that parent is capable of responding appropriately to the child's needs. The adult psychiatrist may also be able to offer an opinion on whether the parent is likely to both engage in and benefit from treatment. This could include treatment for personality disorders or mental health problems, as well as alcohol addiction.

6.21 Another example may occur where there are issues of sex offending; a practitioner who is involved in assessing a child's situation may need to know how effective a treatment programme has been for a particular sex offender, and how that information will assist the assessment of the child in need. It will be essential to check out with the professional who undertook the therapeutic work, the areas in which they consider they have expertise, and what questions the professionals they consider they are qualified to answer. Some may have an excellent understanding of child and family work; others may conceive of their role solely within an adult context.

6.22 When an agency is commissioned to undertake a specialist assessment, this should be undertaken as part of the overall assessment. The findings should be integrated into an analysis of the needs of the child and family. There should be clarity about who has responsibility for analysing these findings and taking action forward, as spelt out in Chapter 4.

A Competent Work Force

6.23 Effective delivery of the Assessment Framework is dependent on the capacity of the workforce to implement it and having the appropriate resources to support the work force. This capacity relates to having sufficient staff in place, who have the requisite knowledge, skills and confidence to undertake assessments. They must be able to make sound judgements about the needs of each child and how best to enable those caring for them to respond appropriately to their needs.

6.24 Staff using the Assessment Framework should continue to update their knowledge about the needs of children and the effectiveness of interventions. This is a continuing process but one which is essential to ensure that members of the workforce are able to deliver good quality practice.

6.25 Knowledge of the wider context of national policy and research should be supplemented by information about the needs of the local population. Feedback from the analysis of locally collected information about what is happening to children and the impact of each agency's contribution should inform future plans and methods of intervention. There will always be debate about how best to help children and their families. These debates and consequent decisions should be continually informed by local and national information on what works in producing the best possible outcomes for children.

Supervision of Practice

6.26 Staff who are in the front line of practice must be well supported by effective supervision. The concepts of practice supervision varies from discipline to discipline. However, the underlying importance of supervision applies to all disciplines and should include consideration of the impact of working with children and families under stress. As Bentovim and Bingley Miller (forthcoming) point out:

Supervision of workers carrying out family assessment is essential, as the assessment can have far reaching effects on the planning of care and whether families can respond to children's needs within their time frames.

6.27 It is important that supervision addresses:

• the process of assessment;
• the timing and relevance of making a child and family assessment;
• practice which recognises the diversity of family lives, traditions and behaviours;
• information about the children and the parents or caregivers, and its analysis;
• what further information is needed and how it will be obtained;
• the need for any immediate action or services;
• the plan for work with the child and family, and allocation of resources;
• the provision of services or intervention and their likely impact on child and family members;
• involvement/contact with staff in other agencies;
• the review of progress, of earlier understanding of the child and family's situation and of the action/intervention plan.

6.28 Agencies should consider carefully, therefore, the expertise, experience, knowledge and professional confidence of those who undertake the critical task of supervision. Their learning needs will be of equal importance to those of the practitioners who carry out assessments.

Staff as Members of Learning Organisations

6.29 This Guidance has an expectation that staff who work directly with children and families and those who supervise and manage this work are knowledgeable, confident and able to exercise professional judgement. This includes senior managers who carry important responsibilities for determining policy and practice at local level, for developing appropriate inter-agency relationships, and for securing and allocating resources.

6.30 An evidence based approach to practice requires front line staff to refiect on what they are doing during assessment and planning, and to examine the impact of their interventions and services on outcomes for children and families. To keep up to date, therefore, continuing learning is essential. It is critical that staff are provided with opportunities for developing appropriate competencies commensurate with their responsibilities and for staff development, including further and post qualifying training.

6.31 A culture of individual staff learning can only exist successfully within an organisational context which values this activity. Individual staff are being required to adapt and respond to changing expectations. This has repercussions for the way in which agencies direct and support their staff. Research in related areas suggests the importance of:

• coherence throughout the organisation about the objectives of policy and practice changes being implemented, exemplified in departmental arrangements, systems and procedures;
  
  
• commitment to the changes being refiected in the values and behaviour of staff throughout the organisation;
  
  
• acknowledgement that new policy expectations require adaptation and change, and involve the whole organisation in a learning process.

6.32 In this respect, Pearn et al (1995) write:

In a world that changes at an ever accelerating rate, some organisations survive and thrive and others stagnate and die. With ever faster change as a permanent fact of life for all kinds of organisations, there is a growing need to make intentional use of learning processes to help ensure that they continue not only to survive but also to thrive, by reacting effectively to whatever the future may bring, but also helping to shape that future. In this sense all organisations need to be learning organisations. Organisations which are not learning as fast as they could or should, and have not ensured that they continue to learn, risk becoming less effective, becoming unhealthy, and eventually ceasing to exist.

6.33 These considerations, if firmly embedded in the organisation arrangements will contribute to ensuring effective assessments of children in need.

Preparing the Ground for Training and Continuing Staff Development

6.34 The Department of Health commissioned training materials, The Child's World: Assessing Children in Need (NSPCC and University of Sheffield, 2000), to assist the understanding and use of the Assessment Framework. The materials were funded from the Training Support Programme and therefore were intended primarily for a social services audience but can be used in inter-agency training on assessing children in need. These training materials were also designed to be used as part of a continuing programme of staff development. They should be used in qualifying and post qualifying social work training especially in the programmes leading to the Post Qualifying Child Care Award. They should also be of relevance to candidates for the Level 3 NVQ 'Caring for Children and Young People'. The occupational standards for child care at post qualifying level, should enable managers in performance appraisal to identify the current competences of staff and their learning needs.

6.35 The full range of resources commissioned by the Department of Health to support the Assessment Framework has been described in Chapter 4 in the accompanying practice guidance (Department of Health, 2000a).

6.36 Agencies should ensure that all practitioners, managers and administrative staff involved with children, are familiar with and keep up to date with developments in relation to the Assessment Framework. This will involve a range of training and briefing methods as a continuing programme of action.

6.37 A list of training and staff development issues which should be regularly considered and reviewed is listed on page 88 (Figure 8).

6.38 Once introduced, use of the Assessment Framework should be monitored and evaluated. The messages of initial training may be ignored or forgotten as staff become preoccupied with more pressing concerns; some will need additional advice about how the various materials should be used and the recording forms completed. Supervisors and managers have a key role in checking that the framework is being used appropriately and effectively, and that findings from individual assessments are informing planning and service provision of children's services.

 

Figure 8 TRAINING AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT ISSUES Training Issues A training strategy team, in consultation with senior managers, should consider and review: who needs training what will be single agency/inter-agency how much training who will do it how it will be resourced The purpose of training would be to ensure that key staff know: why they are using the Assessment Framework the knowledge which underpins it what to use when to use it how to use it how to evaluate their practice (or work) Staff Development Issues A training strategy team could also consider: what are the continuing staff development needs how can these best be addressed.

Summary

6.39 In summary, the following organisational arrangements should be in place to support the effective assessments of children in need:

• policies, intra- and inter-agency protocols and procedures;
• assessment processes;
• structures and other processes for referral, planning and provision of services;
• recording and management information systems;
• training and staff development opportunities for professional staff, trainers, carers and others including administrative staff;
• inter-agency training programmes;
• quality control/quality assurance systems;
• child and family involvement and feedback on the assessment processes;
• systems for obtaining feedback on the implementation programme and then on the training programmes established on a continuing basis.

6.40 These arrangements will need to be monitored and reviewed from time to time to ensure they refiect the most up to date legislation, policies, procedures and evidence based knowledge. In this way, use of the Assessment Framework will be dynamic and continue to draw on developments in a rapidly changing world.

Prepared 29 March 2000