Effective assessment in child protection - Practical ideas & tools
Practical ideas and tools to write evidentially robust, analytical, and child-centred assessments of children and families that make a difference
Part of BASW's Child Protection Social Work Practice Masterclass Series - click here to view the full programme
Back by popular demand, new dates for the Child Protection Masterclass series have been released for 2024! Get inspired with highly practical, research-based training that will equip you with ideas to implement in your social work practice. These focused sessions will be jam-packed with knowledge, practical ideas, and research. Delivered by Richard Devine, who draws on his wealth of experience and expertise. You will leave feeling more confident and re-energised in the work you do with children and families.
Suitable for all social workers nationwide with an interest in child protection.
Course overview:
The sessions focuses on the nuts and bolts of assessment, from the use of tools, methods for gathering information, to structuring and writing an assessment.
In this focused masterclass, Rich Devine, drawing on his twelve years of front-line practice and specialist training will provide highly practical, research informed, structure for undertaking an assessment to effectively assess risk, determine threshold, and importantly, think about what will help the family make change. This will be highly useful and relevant for anyone responsible for writing single assessments, risk assessments and parenting assessments.
A key element of assessment is assessing capacity to change, yet there is little guidance and support in this area for front line practitioners. This session will explore barriers and facilitators to change, how to assess change, and think about support that improves likelihood of change.
Learning outcomes:
- Get a comprehensive overview on ideas and tools to produce an assessment
- Understand how to assess capacity to change, including making the distinction between engagement with support and actual change.
- How to help a parent and improve a child’s outcome when a parent doesn’t want to change
- Learn what to write in different sections of an assessment, including separating description from analysis
- Get a framework for writing evidentially sound, child centred analysis
The trainer:
Rich Devine (Twitter @RichardDevineSW) is a Consultant Social Worker, with over 12 years’ experience working with children and families in a child protection context.
He has a Masters in Attachment Studies from Roehampton University, London (2018) and is trained in several attachment procedures. Currently, he is a Visiting Researcher at Cambridge University. He writes one of the UK’s most popular social work blogs, exploring topics such direct work with children, assessment, and relationship-based practice.
In 2022, he co-facilitated a series of webinars on co-design and co-production with Tim Fisher, one of the leading UK experts on participatory approaches and he undertook research on parental advocacy with Dr Clive Diaz from Cardiff University (to be published in 2023).
Delivered online using MS Teams.