Children and Families – Assessment and Planning

The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (Department of Health, 2000), comprising three interacting domains, standardised forms, and time-limited initial and core assessments, is by now very familiar. The framework, developed to address concern about assessment practice in the 1990’s, has achieved a number of its aims including greater partnership with parents and carers (Cleaver and Walker, 2004). Furthermore, when used skilfully, the framework can have (in the broadest sense of the term) a therapeutic impact (Millar and Corby, 2006). Nonetheless, important questions remain about the framework’s focus and assessment practice. this chapter considers some of the issues that important for a practitioner to consider when undertaking an assessment.