Assessment in child care: using and developing frameworks for practice

For frontline workers with responsibility for child protection, safeguarding and family support, this acclaimed book will: help them to navigate the expanding complexities of child care assessments; guide them to deliver better outcomes for children and families; protect them at a time when legal expectations are high that the latest available evidence is accessed and utilised to inform assessments and care planning. Experts in their fields, the chapter authors each draw on up-to-date research and integrate it into a body of knowledge that constitutes high levels of established wisdom to produce material whose purpose is to be helpful more than challenging. Invaluable to practitioners since the first edition was published in 2003, it 'covers all aspects of how to assess, when to assess and what to assess'. Community Care. The book's systematic and focussed access to the knowledge that underpins their work is also of value to researchers, academics and policy-makers, and especially useful to anyone undertaking postgraduate or post-qualifying studies. It draws on the published literature from many parts of the English-speaking world. While the attention given in some chapters to local legislation and context is greater than in others, the over-riding emphasis on enabling the exercise of professional judgement in carefully mapped contexts means that the book is useful in all parts of the world. 'Thanks to the efforts of all the chapter authors, this book is a significant and worthy successor to the first edition.' Martin C. Calder. Fully updated, it: incorporates responses to all major developments in the field; gives increased emphasis to the importance of addressing risk; includes completely new material, for example on working with parents with a learning disability. CONTENTS AND CHAPTER AUTHORS Introduction Martin C. Calder. Risk and child protection: triangulation, trials and templates Martin C. Calder. Supervising and managing staff undertaking assessments Jane Wonnacott. Assessment of child physical abuse: towards a framework for assessment Martin C. Calder. Assessing neglect Duncan Helm and Brigid Daniel. A framework for assessing emotional abuse Celia Doyle. A framework for assessing failure-to-thrive Dorota Iwaniec. Sexual abuse assessments: from perpetrator friendly to perpetrator challenging frameworks Martin C. Calder. Serious injuries to infants: key risk assessment considerations Peter Dale. Pre birth assessments: context, content and collaboration considerations Martin C. Calder. Domestic violence: untangling the complexity to inform assessments Martin C. Calder. Assessing the needs of disabled children Jane Wonnacott, Anne Patmore and Margaret Kennedy. Learning disability and parenting improving understanding and interventions: doing the basics well Rikki Sneddon. Parents with mental health problems: assessing and formulating parenting capacity, embedded within a service context Khadj Rouf. Parental alcohol misuse: evidence-informed assessment considerations Martin C. Calder and Anne Peake. The assessment of parental substance misuse and its impact on child wellbeing Michael Murphy and Fiona Harbin. Involving children and young people in assessments Helen Charnley, Grace Roddam, Dave Laverick and Jane Wistow. Re-assessing fatherhood: the absence of the new man in social work practice Lena Dominelli. Assessments and social ecology: the importance of community Gordon Jack. A framework for assessing parenting capacity Simon Hackett.