Review Record

• Those involved in the review process
  All those currently involved in supporting the child or young person, including parents, should be involved in the review process. Details of the child or young person’s involvement are recorded in Part Two of the review.

• Details of social work interventions since assessment/admission/last review
  This records the dates that the child or young person and other family members were seen. For care leavers up to their 19th birthday dates of all contact with the young person, including letter and telephone contact should be recorded.

• Review of Progress

  The Review Record follows the domains of the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families. Each of the child/young person’s developmental dimensions are specified. There are also sections on Birth Family: Parenting Capacity and Birth Family: Environmental Factors and Corporate Parent: Parenting Capacity and Corporate Parent: Environmental Factors.

• Review of the child/young person’s progress as rated in the last Assessment and Progress Record
  
  

  If an Assessment and Progress Record has not been completed this should be left blank;

• key indicators
  These collect information about the progress of individual children and young people that are required for strategic planning;

• key changes
  Some dimensions record key changes since the last review or assessment. These are intended to ensure that specific details are recorded to monitor the child or young person’s development and progress and to contribute to the child/young person’s Chronology. For this reason the format for recording information corresponds to that in the Chronology.

• Review of planned actions

  This section records the outcome of the actions and services contained within the plan for the child or young person, along with the impact of any unplanned services. All services received by the child/young person should be considered, including actions to be taken by the child or young person and their family. The actual level of services received should be recorded.

  For example the Care Plan for Isobel White, aged 12, developed on the 7th of April 2002 identified the following actions in relation to her health.

At Isobel’s three monthly review the following progress was recorded:

(not full table)

• Outcomes
  This is intended to record the practitioners overall assessment of progress, the factors that have most influenced this and the child young person’s needs in the dimension. In the example above, although Isobel continued to attend the enuresis clinic the practitioner may feel that the key factor in achieving the change was the fact that foster carers woke Isobel for the toilet during the night.

• Review of Care Plan for Looked After Child/Young person
  Identifies whether the current Care Plan remains appropriate to the child or young person’s needs. Practitioners should explain any proposed change(s) and identify the new plan.

• Review of Placement Arrangements and Agreements for Looked After Child/Young person
  This section also considers the key issues relating to the placement and the practitioner’s views on its suitability for the child/young person. Any proposed change of placement should be identified.

• Review of Contact Arrangements for Looked after Child/Young person
  All members of the child or young person’s immediate birth family should be recorded in this section, including step and half siblings, even where no contact has taken place. This will ensure that the review considers contact arrangements for all members of the child or young person’s immediate birth family.
  The review of contact arrangements asks practitioners to identify with whom the child/young person has had contact since the last review. It does not ask for the frequency of contact. It is expected that this will be covered in the discussion. This section does, however, ask practitioners to record whether there are any issues in relation to contact.

Key Features: Part Two

There is no set agenda for the review. The review, although not necessarily the actual review meeting, should consider the following areas:

• Whether the placement is meeting the child/young person’s needs.

It is expected that the review chair will decide how each area will be covered in the review. For example, if a child/young person has complex educational needs the review chair may decide that it is better to have separate meeting to consider educational issues in more depth. The chair would use information from this meeting to inform their review of the child/young person’s progress and Care Plan.

• The Review Process
  This records how the review was conducted and how the child or young person was involved in the process. For some children and young people looked after it may be in their best interests to hold their review as a series of meetings because of the complexity of the issues involved or because of tensions between key participants.
  It is expected that children and young people will be at the heart of the reviewing process and actively consulted about arrangements for the meeting and supported to contribute, in accordance with their age and ability.

• Summary of Review Discussion
  This is the chair’s notes of the meeting and will form part of the record of the meeting to distribute to participants.

• Decision of Review Child Protection Conference
  This should be completed where the review is a child protection conference review.

• Recommended Future Actions
  Having gathered all the information available, the chair of the review in consultation with other participants is asked to consider whether changes should be made to the plan for the child/young person.
  As some recommendations may have resource implications it will be the responsibility of each Council with Social Services Responsibility to decide how the recommendations of the review will be ratified within their organisation.

• Care Plan
  On the basis of the information available to the review the chair must decide, in the case of looked after children, whether any changes are required to the overall aim of the Care Plan to meet the child’s needs.

• Contact Arrangements
  The chair should also decide whether there should be any change in contact arrangements.

The final page identifies any other plans and agreements that may need to be up dated as a result of the review. It also records the date and time of the next review and the signatures of those involved.

Example review form for children in need (Microsoft Word format)

Example review form for child protection