Nurturing Change: National Guidance & Support Getting it right for every child in Practice Assessment & Planning Jane Aldgate – Wendy Rose Getting it right Roadshow February-March 2008

Children and families need to have confidence in practitioners Throughout any assessment and planning children and families should feel confident that: their worries and views have been listened to carefully and their wishes have been heard and understood they can rely on appropriate help being available as soon as possible the agency they first have contact with will arrange for help to be provided from that agency and others, if necessary they should not have to go round each agency to try and secure the help they need

A systematic practice model of assessment and planning combines knowledge, theory and good practice defines risks and needs as two sides of the same coin assessment should be proportionate and dynamic assessment should not prevent immediate help from being put in place analysis makes sense of information gathered analysis leads to decision-making against well-being indicators plans should show what needs to be done, timescales and who takes action

The Practice Model

Stage 1: Identifying concerns Identify concerns against the well-being indicators of: safe healthy achieving nurtured active respected & responsible included

Identifying gaps in well-being and how to meet them There are five questions practitioners need to ask themselves: 1.What is getting in the way of this child achieving his or her potential? 2.What can I do to help this child now? 3.What can my agency do to help this child now? 4.Do I need any further information to construct a plan? 5.What additional help, if any, is needed from others?

Stage 2: Using the My World Triangle to gather further information

Gathering information round the My World Triangle Should be proportionate to concerns but bear in mind the whole child Practitioners from different agencies will bring expertise on different domains Use the triangle to identify strengths and pressures What risks are there to the child immediately or in the long term?

What do we mean by risks? Different practitioners will bring different perspectives: Risk of immediate harm – safety the concern of everyone Risks to development if needs not met Risks from the wider world – children’s safety or risky behaviour Risks from parents under pressure Impact of harm in the long term if children’s well-being is not addressed

Stage 3: How to make sense of the information gathered Analyse within a resilience framework Take account of interactions between different factors

Resilience Matrix: A Resilience Matrix for Analysing Information Resilience Vulnerability Adversity Protective Environment Normal development under difficult conditions e.g. secure attachment, outgoing temperament, Sociability, problem solving skills Life events or circumstances posing a threat to healthy development e.g. loss, abuse, neglect Factors in the child’s environment acting as buffer to the negative effects of adverse experience Those characteristics of the child, their family circle and wider community which might threaten or challenge healthy development e.g. disability, racism, lack of or poor attachment Adapted from Daniel and Wassell (2002) Assessing and Promoting Resilience in Vulnerable Children (3 workbooks), London, Jessica Kingsley

Identify what needs to be done What needs to happen to make the child safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected and responsible, and included? What are the immediate priorities for help? What are the strengths that can be built on? What other resources need to be in place?

Constructing the Child’s Plan Every plan (single or multi-agency) will have the following components: the views of a child (according to age and stage of development) and the family/carers who is a partner to the plan reason for the plan summary of the child’s needs desired outcomes resources timescales for action and change what needs to be done and by whom any contingency arrangements, if necessary arrangements for reviewing the plan

Reviewing the plan How well is the child doing - what has improved in the child’s circumstances? What if anything has got worse? Have the outcomes in the plan been achieved? If not, is there anything in the plan that needs to be changed? Who continues to manage the plan?