A Common Assessment for Children in Need? Mixed Messages from a Pilot Study in Wales

Abstract

A core element of government policy for child and family services in Wales and England is the notion of multi-agency collaboration in order to meet the needs of children, and in particular the use of a basic common assessment tool in order to provide information swiftly and consistently when making referrals. This paper reports on a Welsh Assembly Government funded study to design and test a common assessment framework (CAF) for referring children in need to social services. The scheme was piloted by a social services department and its partners in an urban local authority area in South Wales, and results were compared with data gathered from a neighbouring authority that used an alternative method for obtaining information at the point of referral. A semi-experimental method of evaluation indicated that the CAF did facilitate better information sharing and did appear to promote a more focused service response to referrals. However, it also revealed a limited capacity among some occupational groups to engage with particular assessment fields in the CAF that required comments on aspects of child development. It was also evident that some professionals were unlikely to seek the views of children when completing the CAF. In this respect, introducing a CAF may well expose the need for ongoing integrated training in the concepts and conduct of assessment to help generate skills and consistency at the local level—neither of which should be assumed to be present in advance of implementation.

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