Parenting Assessment Framework - proceduresonline.com

1 Guidance for Social Workers undertaking assessments of Parenting Capacity February 2016 London Borough of Southwark Safeguarding Service Parenting Assessment Framework practitioner Handbook - ii - Foreword - iii - CONTENTS Page number SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION Introduction 1 Parenting Capacity What is Parenting capacity? 3 Concept of Significant Harm 6 Definition of abuse 7 Potential impact of abuse and neglect 9 Factors that can affect parental capacity 13 Capacity to Change 18 Planning the Assessment 18 Process of Assessment 23 SECTION 2: REPORT GUIDANCE Part One: Framework of Assessment 39 Part Two: Reason for the Assessment 44 Part Three: Process of the Assessment 45 Part Four: Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations 46 Part Five: Profile of the Child 47 Part Six: Profile of the Parent 49 Part Seven: Family Culture, Relationships, Resources and Integration into the Community 78 Part Eight: Parenting Knowledge, Style and Relationship with the Child 88 Part Nine: Understanding of the Local Authority`s concerns 96 Part Ten: Capacity of Parent to Change 97 Part Eleven: Analysis 102 Part Twelve.

2 Conclusions and Recommendations 105 - iv - CONTENTS Page number SECTION 3: ASSESSING PARENTS WITH SPECIFIC NEEDS Assessing parents with a learning disability or significant learning difficulties 106 Assessing parents with mental health problems 117 Assessing parents with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Assessing parents where substance misuse is a concern 127 135 Assessing parents where domestic violence is a concern 149 SECTION 4: APPENDICES Appendix 1: PParenting Assessment Report Template 160 Appendix 2: Assessment Agreement and Consent Template 179 Appendix 3: Developing a Genogram and Eco-map 192 Appendix 4: Brief Guide to Child Development 197 Appendix 5: Overview of Attachment Theory 209 Appendix 6: Observation of Parent-Child Interaction 219 Appendix 7: Involving a Child with Disabilities or Complex Needs 226 Appendix 8: Risk, Resilience and Vulnerability 229 Appendix 9: Assessing Capacity to Change 240 Appendix 10: Example of an accessible letter for parents with learning disabilities 252 Appendix 11: List of offences that may present a risk, or potential risk, to children 258 Appendix 12: Questionnaires, Scales and Tools 261 SECTION 5: REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READING 334 1 SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION The Southwark Parenting Assessment Framework has been designed to assist practitioners when assessing a parent s ability to meet the needs of a child; to consider the issues known to potentially impact on Parenting capacity.

3 And to consider relevant factors when assessing parental capacity to change within a timescale consistent with the child`s developmental needs. The aim is to enable practitioners to feel confident and competent when undertaking Parenting assessments. The concepts and themes will be familiar. The Department of Health Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (2000) provides the overarching conceptual map, ensuring the three inter-related domains of Parenting capacity - children s needs, family, and environmental factors - are addressed. Additionally, the Southwark Parenting Assessment Framework takes into account up-to-date research and recent developments in social work thinking and practice. The Framework aims to promote the use of a systematic, evidence - based and analytical approach to facilitate the identification of risks, strengths and protective factors to enable practitioners to come to a structured professional judgment about whether a parent has the capacity to meet the needs of a child.

4 It has been designed to build on the Single Assessment and the Southwark Family Risk and Safety Assessment (FRaSA), so that some requisite information and analysis should already be available to the practitioner , and can be included within the Parenting Assessment , providing these assessments are recent. The Parenting Assessment Framework is consistent with a systemic model and the Signs of Safety approach to safeguarding. The Parenting Assessment Framework is suitable for use during pre-proceedings or care proceedings, where the child is at home or placed away from home. A robust and rigorous Parenting Assessment will contribute to the local authority evidence where a decision is made that it is necessary to issue care proceedings to ensure that a child is safeguarded. Pre-birth assessments should continue to be undertaken using the Southwark Pre-Birth 2 Assessment Tool (refer to of Southwark online procedures).

5 Where it is necessary to complete a Parenting Assessment following the birth of the child, much of the information within the pre-birth Assessment would be relevant and could therefore be included in the Parenting Assessment . The Parenting Assessment Framework identifies a number of tools, questionnaires and scales that can be used to explore and enhance particular aspects of the Assessment . Both the Framework and the tools are intended to be used flexibly, and tailored to individual family circumstances and the nature of the concerns. The Assessment should be dynamic in the sense that information may emerge during the course of the Assessment which suggests additional factors are particularly relevant and need to be explored further. Importantly, the Assessment should be approached with an open mind, and the evidence gathered may mean that initial hypotheses need to be re-visited.

6 The handbook is intended to be a resource, as well as to provide guidance. The guidance in relation to some sections of the report includes examples of prompts aimed to support practitioners in thinking about how to elicit information where this is not spontaneously forthcoming in the narrative of the person being interviewed. It is important to emphasise, however, that where prompts are used, these should not be used in the form of a checklist; rather they should be used selectively, and with sensitivity to the particular circumstances of the family and the presenting concerns. Whilst the elements of Assessment that need to be addressed and analysed are set out under separate sections and headings, the overall analysis needs to consider the inter-relationship between the various elements. The term parent has been used in the guidance to apply to a parent, or a caregiver who has responsibility for the upbringing of a child, or a person who has a significant role in looking after a child, including a parent s partner.

7 The guidance in this handbook will be supplemented and reviewed through training workshops. 3 What is Parenting capacity? The term Parenting capacity was used in the Department of Health Assessment Framework (2000) to refer to the ability of parents or caregivers to ensure that the child s developmental needs are being appropriately and adequately responded to, and to adapt to his or her changing needs over time. This includes: Basic Care: providing for the child s physical, medical and dental needs; Ensuring Safety: ensuring the child is adequately protected from harm or danger; Emotional Warmth: ensuring the child s emotional needs are met and giving the child a sense of being specially valued and a positive sense of his/her own racial and cultural identity; Stimulation: promoting the child s learning and intellectual development through encouragement and cognitive stimulation and promoting social opportunities Guidance and Boundaries: enabling the child to regulate their own emotions and behaviour.

8 The key parental tasks are demonstrating and modeling appropriate behaviour and control of emotions and interactions with others, and guidance which involves setting boundaries, so that the child is able to develop an internal model of moral values and conscience, and social behaviour appropriate for the society within which they will grow up. The aim is to enable the child to grow into an autonomous adult, holding their own values, and able to demonstrate appropriate behaviour with others rather than having to be dependent on rules outside themselves. This includes not over protecting children from exploratory and learning experiences Stability: providing a sufficiently stable family environment to enable a child to develop and maintain a secure attachment to the primary caregiver(s) in order to ensure optimal development. 4 Reder et al. (2003) define Parenting as a constellation of behaviours, attitudes, emotions and responsibilities directed by an adult to a child.

9 They go on to provide a helpful analysis of the elements of Parenting , which includes: the aim of Parenting is to facilitate the child s optimal development within a safe environment; Parenting initially serves to ensure the child`s survival and gradually aims towards ensuring their autonomous functioning; different parental behaviours are necessary at different times in the child`s life; Parenting involves a relationship between adult and child, to which both contribute; a child`s Parenting , and the family relationships in which it occurs, is a fundamental contributor to their future psychological well-being; other close relationships affect the parent-child dyad; the potential to parent satisfactorily may be influenced by past and present experiences. A child s basic care needs for safety, food and shelter will remain to a relative degree throughout childhood.

10 Other needs are more responsive to a child`s developmental stage, such as providing guidance and boundaries, and promoting autonomy, and a parent needs to respond appropriately to these changes (Birch, 2015). A parent needs to understand their child`s emotional needs, and that emotional security and responsiveness are essential for psychological development, including intellectual and emotional functioning. A parent also needs to understand and be able to meet their own psychological and physical needs, and understand how their child`s needs are different (Birch, 2015). 5 Recent research has identified as significant the parent s ability to perceive, understand and respond appropriately to the child s needs, enabling a secure attachment relationship to develop in which the child experiences safety, with the confidence that his or her needs will be met (Dent, 2015).