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Integrated Children's System
Assessment and Progress Record
The Assessment and Progress Records
are used to assess and monitor the developmental progress
of looked after children, and to inform the Care
Plan. The first Assessment and Progress
Record builds on the information in the Core
Assessment Record.
| There are four age related Assessment
and Progress Records:
1-2* years (up until the child's third birthday);
3-4 years (up until the child's fifth birthday);
5-10 years (up until the child's eleventh birthday);
11-15 years (up until the child's sixteenth birthday).
* There is no Assessment and Progress Record
for children under one year of age. This is because
children under one year will have had a core assessment
completed when they became looked after and subsequent
assessment will be after their first birthday. |
View
Integrated Children's System Assessment and Progress Record
(5-10 years) (PDF format)
Completing the Assessment and Progress Record
A decision to complete an Assessment and Progress
Record is made at the second review, i.e. at
four months from the start of the current care episode.
This Record is to be completed by the time of the third
review, i.e. at ten months from the start of the current
care episode. If the child or young person returns home
before the assessment is completed, the information gathered
should be used to inform the plan for the child or young
person as their developmental needs may not necessarily
change even if their circumstances do.
An Assessment and Progress Record should be completed
at least once in every six months for children up until
their fifth birthday and at least once annually for children
aged 5 years and over. An Assessment and Progress
Record should be completed within a maximum of
35 working days from the start of the process.
The Assessment and Progress Record is a recording tool
and requires the skills, knowledge and professional judgement
of social workers to use it effectively. It should
NOT be used as a questionnaire with children and families,
carers and other professionals involved with the child:
its purpose is to support social workers in recording
and analysing information gathered during an assessment.
This should enhance the quality of both decision making
and plans for looked after children.
The Assessment and Progress Record has
two key functions: as a tool for planning
and conducting the assessment, and as a record
which brings together the information gathered during
the assessment to facilitate analysis. The Assessment
and Progress Record should be completed by the
child or young person’s social worker. This responsibility
should not be delegated.
Key Features
The heading of each section and the far left-hand column
of the Assessment Records contain information and advice
to guide social workers when completing an assessment.
The prompts and reminders include:
- research based information;
- information about child development, health
and educational attainment standards; and
- suggestions about the use of specific tools,
questionnaires and scales.
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The Assessment and Progress Records also contain statements
that are relevant to most children and young people. The
statements are intended to help social workers:
- plan the assessment;
- identify gaps in knowledge about a child or
young person. For example, there may be a large
number of reports concerning a disabled young
person’s medical condition. Using the Core
Assessment Record or Assessment
and Progress Record to review the information
may identify that there is no or little information
known about how parents or carers support the
young person, or whether the young person smokes
or drinks;
- with structuring and recording the information
gathered during an assessment;
- identifying areas of strengths and difficulties;
- analysis and planning.
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It is important to emphasise that the completion and
use of the Assessment and Progress Record
is not a mechanical task of going through the
sections, filling in boxes or making a few comments. The
purpose of reviewing the child or young person’s
needs and their progress is to come to an holistic understanding
of what should be done in order to help the young person.
The statements provide good indicators of needs
and progress. Although not every statement may
be relevant to a particular child or young person, it
is important to complete as many as possible. They should
be thought of as reminders to social workers of what they
need to know about the child or young person in order
to assess their progress. If many of them are not known
it is unlikely that the assessment will be based on a
good understanding of the child or young person’s
needs and therefore unlikely that interventions identified
will be appropriate or effective.
These are not the only areas of importance and an assessment
should take account of all relevant areas for the child
or young person using multiple sources of information.
The information required to make judgements about a child
or young person’s developmental needs will be collected
through a variety of methods including:
- Discussions with the child or young person,
parents, carers, other family members and professionals
working with child and family member;
- observations of child and his or her interactions,
for example, with family members/carers.
- A review of existing information, for example,
social services files including the existing chronology,
correspondence and reports from other agencies;
- the use of tools designed to assist in particular
aspects of the assessment, for example:
- The Family Pack of Questionnaires and Scales
(Department of Health, Cox and Bentovim, 2000)
- The HOME Inventory (for children up to and including
age 10 and their families) (Cox and Walker, 2002)
- The Family Assessment (Bentovim and Bingley
Miller, 2001)
- other specialist assessments, such as speech
therapy, psychiatric & psychological, Special
Educational Needs.
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It is important that practitioners take time to plan
how they will complete an Assessment and Progress Record.
The plan should include:
The timescale for completing the record;
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The order in which domains and dimensions
will be completed;
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How the child or young person, parents
and carers will be involved in the assessment of each
domain and dimension;
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The sources of information that will
be used for each domain and dimension;
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How information will be obtained from
other family members, agencies and professionals;
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Who will have access to the completed
record, and what sections of the record they should
have access to.
Structure
The structure of each Assessment and Progress Record is the
same:
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Checklist of Contents
This records which sections of the
record have been completed and the date(s) of updating.
Where other assessments have been used to complete
sections of the Assessment and Progress Record,
these should be recorded in this section and included
as annexes to the record.
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Child/Young Person’s Developmental
Needs
The child or young person’s developmental
needs are assessed in accordance to the seven developmental
dimensions used in Looking After Children (Department
of Health, 1995) and The Framework for the Assessment
of Children in Need and their Families (Department
of Health, 1999).
For children under five the dimensions
of Emotional and Behavioural Development and Self-care
Skills and Identity and Social Presentation are
combined.
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Corporate Parenting Capacity
Within each developmental dimension
information is gathered to assess the corporate
parenting received by the child or young person
in relation to their identified needs. This is recorded
under the heading of ‘Corporate Parenting
Capacity’ to reflect that these may be
provided by the child or young person’s birth
parents, foster or residential carers or by the
local authority as the child or young person’s
corporate parent.
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This gathers information about Family
and Environmental Factors in relation to the caring
environment that is provided for the child/young person
and the support available to their carers.
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Sources of information used
This may include discussions with other
family members or professionals involved with the child
or young person, existing reports for example: school
reports, newly commissioned reports such as a report from
a child psychologist, and questionnaires and scales used
with the child or young person and/or carers.
Decision-making will almost always require
more than one source of information.
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Assessment of the child/young person’s
needs
In some dimensions the child or young
person’s developmental needs are broken down into
sub categories. For example, for children and young people
aged five years and over, Family and Social Relationships
contains sections on the child or young person’s
relationship with carers, birth family, and peers.
Each dimension on the child or young
person’s needs contains a number of statements
relating to key issues and areas. Each statement is
accompanied by a Yes and No box, and a Notes and Evidence
Section. The statements are intended to assist practitioners
in gathering and recording key information about a child
or young person’s needs. They are also intended
to assist managers, supervisors and review chairs to
obtain a quick overview of areas of need and strength.
For example, the Identity section
of Assessment and Progress Record for young people 11-15
includes the following statements (not in order):
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Yes |
No |
Notes
and Evidence |
| The young person finds it hard to explain why s/he
is not living with parents |
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| The young person sees him/herself
as unattractive or unappealing |
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| Young person feels connected to
and part of his/her birth family |
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| Young person can describe his/her
cultural and ethnic background |
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In this example the young person may report to the social
worker that they have no difficulty in explaining to people
why s/he is not living with their parents. The carers
may confirm this but school may report that the young
person has made up elaborate stories to conceal the fact
that they looked after.
The practitioner would use the space on
the left-hand side of the page to record their notes about
this area or to record the evidence supporting their decision.
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Yes |
No |
Notes
and Evidence |
| The young person finds it hard to explain why s/he
is not living with parents |
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School report (22/2/02) indicates that James
is finding it difficult to explain honestly to teachers
and friends why he is not living at home. |
For some children and young people, there
may be a considerable amount of high quality information
available already about some areas of a child or young
person’s needs. The Assessment and Progress
Record can usefully organise and record this
information alongside information from the child or young
person and their carers. In other cases, for example where
a child has profound disabilities, a practitioner may
decide it is more appropriate to gather information about
the child’s needs in relation to a specific dimension
using specialist assessment tools. In such circumstances,
the practitioner should record at the beginning of each
dimension the assessment tool(s) completed.
Having considered the child or young person’s
needs the Assessment and Progress Record
considers the parenting inputs in relation to each dimension.
Again, a series of prompts are used to guide the assessment.
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Summary Assessment of the child/young
person’s needs
At the end of each dimension, there
is a summary assessment of the child or young person’s
developmental progress. The analysis of information
gathered, is completed by the social worker, who should
then complete the summary assessment ratings of the
child or young person’s progress, based on his
or her professional judgement following analysis of
all the information gathered in relation to the dimension.
There are two separate ratings to be
completed in each dimension. In the first rating, there
are four descriptions of the child or young person’s
progress and definitions of each are given to assist
social workers in making their assessment. These are
intended to provide a summary assessment of a child
or young person’s development in a particular
dimension. This will help to identify areas of particular
need for a child or young person and where actions should
be targeted.
These are not ratings of the
child or young person but ratings of the child’s
progress on the different dimensions. Children
will often be doing well in one area but not so well
in another. In making these ratings it is important
not to make allowances for a child’s particular
circumstances. For example, a rating should not reflect
a judgement that the child or young person is doing
well given what he or she has been through. Their circumstances
are taken into account when analysing the information
obtained in all three domains of the assessment.
The summary assessments include indications
of how the progress of disabled children and young people
should be taken into account.
For example, the Emotional and Behavioural
Development section of Assessment and Progress Record
for young people aged eleven to fifteen provides the
following ratings and definitions:
| Rating |
Guidance |
| Good |
The young person has many strengths.
S/he shows many positive characteristics of the kind
listed (or of other kinds) and there are no worries
about feelings or behaviour (either for him/her or
his/her carers) that cannot be reasonably easily dealt
with within the home. |
| Satisfactory |
Again a positive picture with
a range of strengths and only a few difficulties or
difficulties that carers see as transitory or as a
‘stage’ the young person is going through
(e.g. moody or inclined to be challenging) or as a
reaction to recent events. Any problems are contained
by the family and not seen as worrying within the
overall pattern of development. |
| Some difficulties |
Here strengths are still evident,
but the young person may have some more persistent
difficulties in controlling emotions or in expressing
feelings, challenging behaviour may be harder to deal
with, periods of unhappiness of moodiness more frequent
and harder to get through to, or restless and distractibility
may interfere with some aspects of life such as peer
relationships or education. Carers may feel the need
for advice and support in dealing with the problems,
although specialist help may not be needed |
| Difficulties currently outweigh
strengths |
Here there are some clearly worrying emotional and
behavioural problems that interfere with the young
person’s life and point to the need for some
specialist advice or help. The problems tend to dominate
the picture and it is harder to work with the current
strengths or positive features that the young person
has. |
The rating of the child/young person’s
needs should always be completed, including when the assessment
of their needs has not been completed by using the statements
in that dimension or domain of the record. For example,
where a child has recently had an in depth assessment
of their emotional and behavioural development by a child
psychiatrist the practitioner may decide, on reviewing
the information available, that it is not necessary to
complete the Emotional and Behavioural Development dimension
of the Assessment and Progress Record. However, based
on the information available the practitioner would still
complete the rating of need. In such situations it is
important that the evidence on which the rating is based
is recorded at the beginning of the section and copied
to all those receiving a copy of the record.
The next rating records the social worker’s
assessment of the level of change since the last Assessment
and Progress Record was completed. This is intended
to give an indication of the child or young person’s
development over time. Using both ratings together means
that it should be possible to demonstrate whether children
are showing progress over time even if they continue to
show some difficulties. Conversely, the change ratings
will alert social workers and the review meeting to issues
that may need special attention and input. To inform the
child or young person’s statutory review the ratings
of progress and change are included in the Review
Record. In order to monitor the child or young
person’s progress over time it is important that
the summary ratings are completed even when it is considered
that things have changed very little.
If any sections of the Assessment
and Progress Record have not been revisited within
the appropriate time-scales, the review chair should query
the decision and, if appropriate, ask that this work be
done. As a minimum the reasons for not updating a dimension
should be recorded and the basis for the ratings made
clear.
The Assessment and Progress Record,
like the Core Assessment Record, is structured
according to the domains and dimensions of the Assessment
Framework.
Social Workers should plan how they will
undertake the assessment and the completion the Assessment
and Progress Record. This will include an evaluation
of existing information about the child or young person
to identify key gaps in the social worker’s knowledge
about the current situation, and the order in which dimensions
should be assessed.
Involving children and young people
The involvement of children and young people in the assessment
process should be a key indicator in judging the quality
of any assessment. However, unlike the Assessment
and Action Record there is no suggestion that the
Assessment and Progress Record should
be completed directly with the child or young person.
A directory of materials, www.doh.gov.uk/integratedchildrenssystem,
which have been designed to support children and young
people to express their views has been published.
Practitioners should inform children and young people
an Assessment and Progress Record is
about to be undertaken. Practitioners may wish to show
the record to the child or young person and discuss the
information that they will be gathering to assess the
child or young person’s needs and progress, how
they will be gathering this information and from whom.
Practitioners may wish to share the record as individual
dimensions are completed or wait until all the record
has been completed before discussing it with the child
or young person.
Practitioners should share their assessment in a manner
that is appropriate to the child or young person’s
age and understanding. An Assessment and Progress
Record should never be sent to a child or young
person before the practitioner has discussed it with them.
Particular care should be taken in sharing the ratings
of the child or young person’s needs and it will
be important to stress that the ratings refer to the child
or young person’s needs and that they are not a
rating of the child/young person.
On rare occasions a child or young person may chose not
to participate in an assessment of one or more dimensions
of their needs. In these situations the assessment should
still take place, but the practitioner should record in
the Assessment and Progress Record the
dimensions that were completed without the benefit of
the child or young person’s contribution and why
the child or young person did not contribute.
Links with other parts of the system
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Using the Assessment and Progress Record
with the Review
The Assessment and Progress Record should
be used to inform a child or young person’s review.
The ratings of Progress, and where appropriate Change,
from the most recent Assessment and Progress Record
should be recorded in the Review record. The Assessment
and Progress Record should assist practitioners in evaluating
the impact of actions and services in identifying further
actions.
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Using the Assessment and Progress Record
with a Care Plan
The Assessment and Progress Record
should be used to inform the Care Plan for the child
or young person. The Assessment and Progress Record
should help practitioner to judge whether:
- the overall objective of the Care Plan remains
appropriate to the child or young person’s
needs
- the impact of actions and services
- there are areas of previously unidentified
or unmet need
- the placement is meeting the child or young
person’s needs
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Using the Assessment and Progress Record with
a Child’s Plan
Where a looked after child or young person returns
to their birth family and there is an up to date
Assessment and Progress Record
this should be used to inform the Child’s
Plan. The Assessment and Progress
Record should ensure that the Child’s
Plan is based on an assessment of the
child or young person’s developmental needs
and progress. However, the Assessment
and Progress Record does not contain
an assessment of the birth family’s parenting
capacity or the family and environmental factors
impacting on the birth family. Therefore a core
assessment should be completed prior to or within
35 working days of the child or young person returning
to live with their birth family.
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