This slide explains what the rest of the presentation will be about.
Article 12 of the UNCRC: ‘State parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child’. Get a quote from the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need. Statutory guidance on making arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children under section 11 of the children act 2004 A guide to interagency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
A number of child death enquiries have indicated that if children had been listened to, the evidence about the risk would have emerged . Spending time with children, and talking to them, and making sure that you are actively listening and taking seriously what they say is an essential safeguarding activity. Laming Recommendation 26 Directors of social services must ensure that no case involving a vulnerable child is closed until the child and the child’s carer have been seen and spoken to, and a plan for the ongoing promotion and safeguarding of the child’s welfare has been agreed. (paragraph 4.183) Recommendation 35 Directors of social services must ensure that children who are the subject of allegations of deliberate harm are seen and spoken to within 24 hours of the allegation being communicated to social services. If this timescale is not met, the reason for the failure must be recorded on the case file. (paragraph 5.127) I found it hard to understand the evidence I heard from qualified social workers about what they described as a lack of clarity on how they should assess the needs of a child and its family. While the National Assessment Framework was published more recently, and welcomed, I would have expected qualified social workers at the time Victoria needed protection to be capable of completing an assessment of her needs. The Children Act 1989 had been implemented in 1991. The forms for this purpose were available and senior managers accepted that the tasks had been completed. In reality, however, the conversations with Victoria were limited to little more than “hello, how are you?”. The only ‘assessment’ completed involved the writing down of limited and sometimes contradictory information provided by Kouao.
From Making Every Child Matter – a summary of 69 children’s inspections over a 2 year period from April 2003 to March 2005
Second point – Ruth Sinclair (1998) ‘Involving children in planning their care’ in Child and Family Social Work . Vol 3. Third point – refers to collective participation rather than individual, but makes the point that organisations who take this seriously provide a culture where front line workers are more likely to be given time and encouragement to work with individual children.
These are the basic building blocks for good communication and involvement of children and young people.
It doesn’t have to be McDonald’s – it should be somewhere private. One young woman said that she told her social worker all the important things when she was in the car.
Creating trust by taking time, doing what you say you’ll do, keeping communication open.
Think about the different factors affecting how children will respond – developmental.
More on other methods, tools and techniques, on day two of the course.
![Communicating with children in assessments ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)