Carrying out better assessments: evidence snapshot
Top-line messages from research on conducting effective assessments
Publication date June 2024
This evidence snapshot provides a top-level summary of findings from research published between 2010 and 2022 about assessment practice in children's social work.
Research and reviews1,2,3,4,5 have identified key characteristics of good assessment practice, including:
- being centred on the child’s needs
- recognising the wider family and social context
- gathering and analysing appropriate information from all relevant sources
- avoiding being overly defensive or risk-averse.
This snapshot looks at challenges to, and enablers of, effective assessments.
References
Cook, L. and Gregory, M. (2020) Making sense of sensemaking: conceptualising how child and family social workers process assessment information. Child Care in Practice, 26(2): pp. 182-195Critchley, A. (2020) 'The lion's den': social workers' understandings of risk to infants. Child and Family Social Work, 25(4): pp. 895-903
Hood, R. et al (2022) Improving the quality of decision making and risk assessment in children’s social care: a rapid evidence review (PDF). London: What Works Centre for Children's Social Care.
Rees, A. M. et al (2021) Findings from a thematic multidisciplinary analysis of child practice reviews in Wales. Child Abuse Review, 30(2): pp. 141-154.
Whittaker, A. (2018) How do child-protection practitioners make decisions in real-life situations? Lessons from the psychology of decision making. The British Journal of Social Work, 48(7): pp. 1967-1984