INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
November 2012
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Integrated Assessment Framework
Evidenced Based Assessment
Introduction
This evidence based multi-agency assessment framework has been
influenced, developed and updated taking account of the Department of
Health Framework, (2000), Scottish Executive guidance, Getting it Right for
Every Child (GIRFEC) and work already undertaken by Dundee City Council
and partner agencies. There are four parts to the framework and this overview
provides details of the overarching principles and components of assessment
and Getting it Right for Every Child. The framework and associated tools and
appendices can be accessed on the Integrated Children's Website.
An Overview
The framework highlights the importance of assessment in identifying the
needs of children, young people and their families and provides a structure for
undertaking assessments.
The framework provides some detailed information on particular tasks that
require to be undertaken. It should provide an insight into the roles and
responsibilities for staff in all agencies that work with children, young people
and parents.
Cross reference to appendices is made in this guidance. The tools and
appendices cover a range of areas that will inform thinking and help staff
focus on the main tasks to assist them to identify children's needs and
undertake assessments and intervention with children, young people and their
families.
It is recognised that some agencies will undertake their own specialist
assessment. For example, the NHS Tayside Family Needs Assessment
Framework (FHNA), or psychiatric assessments that are undertaken by Child
and Mental Health psychiatric services. The FHNA is a framework for public
health nurses, health visitors, midwives and school health nurses to assess
the needs of children and families they work with and to develop a Care Plan
using the FHNA. The FHNA includes information about what programme the
child may be placed on in relation to support, but also indicates where the
assessment should be extended to other agencies.
The integrated assessment framework does not replace other assessments of
this nature, but where there is multi agency involvement, individual agency
assessments are shared to inform an integrated assessment and child's plan.
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Assessment and Early Intervention
Assessment and early intervention are likely to be the most effective in
prevention. All assessments should identify strengths as well as weaknesses
(or areas for improvement). Assessment is a dynamic process and should be
about working with families not doing to them. Any assessment of a child
or young person and his or her family that aims to understand what is
happening to a child has to take account of a child’s developmental needs,
the capacity of parents to respond to those needs, and wider family and
environmental factors. Together these have a direct impact on the current
and long-term well being of a child. They constitute a framework for
assessment to assist workers to understand what is happening to a child or
young person (See Figure 1 Assessment Triangle, page 7).
Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC)
Getting it Right for Every Child is a national programme that is changing the
way adults and organisations think and act to help all children, young people
and their families grow, develop and reach their full potential. GIRFEC is
about all children – not just children ‘in need’, those ‘looked after, those ‘at
risk’ or with the most acute or complex needs.
For the purposes of this framework our involvement will start with children in
need, but not precluding universal services and the role these services play in
information sharing, assessment and early intervention. For further detail refer
to Integrated Children's Services Website (GIRFEC model for Dundee).
Definition of Children in Need
The Children (Scotland) Act 1995, Regulations and Guidance, provides a list
that is indicative rather than exclusive. Family conditions, such as family
breakdown or poverty and deprivation may be factors underlying the needs of
children and young people. The statutory definition of a 'child in need' is wide
and can include:
 Children and young people who are looked after
 Children and young people in need of protection
 Children and young people who are no longer looked after by the local
authority
 Young parents
 Children and young people who have disabilities /special needs (e.g.
physical, or learning disabilities, sensory impairment)
 Children and young people who are carers for relatives and who are in
households affected by disability
 Young carers
 Children and young people who have been adopted (and those who
are in the process of adoption)
 Children and young people who misuse alcohol/drugs
 Children and young people who are effected by HIV/Aids
 Children and young people who are homeless
 Children and young people in poor housing
 Children and young people who live in violent environments
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Children and young people whose parents suffer from mental illness
Children and young people whose parents misuse substances /alcohol
Children and young people whose health and development is suffering
Children and young people whose educational development is
suffering (including those excluded form school)
Children and young people who have emotional, behavioural and
mental heath problems
Children and young people who are in conflict with the law because of
offending behaviour (including those who offend against other children)
Children who are unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard
of health or development
Children whose health and development is likely to be significantly
impaired or further impaired
Culture Change, System Change and Practice Change
The GIRFEC programme aims to remove obstacles which are rooted in the
differences in cultures, systems and practice that have emerged through
single agency thinking and delivery.
Traditionally, agencies have been seen helping a child or young person only
in terms of the part of the child's life that is the concern or responsibility of
their agency. GIRFEC asks all practitioners to think about a child's needs and
difficulties not only from their agencies' perspective but also to see needs and
risks in the context of the whole child's life (Assessing and Managing Risk,
Jane Aldgate and Wendy Rose 2008). (Appendix 1)
The GIRFEC framework represents a way of trying to capture the complexity
of the child's world and provides an approach to collecting and analysing
information about the child. This includes common values and principles
which apply across all aspects of working with children and young people.
The values and principles are:
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Promoting the well-being of individual children and young people
Keeping children and young people safe
Putting the child at the centre
Taking a whole child approach
Building on strengths and promoting resilience
Promoting opportunities and valuing diversity
Providing additional help that is appropriate, proportionate and timely
Supporting informed choice
Working in partnership with families
Respecting confidentiality and sharing information
Promoting the same values across all working relationships
Making the most of bringing together each workers' expertise
Co-coordinating help
Building a competent workforce to promote children and young
people's well - being
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Getting it right is founded on the following 10 core components which can be
applied in any setting and in any circumstances (Scottish Government 2008).
The core components, my world assessment triangle, resilience matrix
and the well being indicators provide the basis when considering
assessments.
The 10 Core Components:
1. A focus on improving outcomes for children, young people and their
families based on a shared understanding of wellbeing
2. A common approach to gaining consent and to sharing information
where appropriate
3. An integral role for children, young people and their families in
assessment, planning and intervention
4. A co-ordinated and unified approach to identifying concerns, assessing
needs, agreeing actions and outcomes based on the well being
indicators
5. Streamlined planning, assessment and decision making processes that
lead to the right help at the right time for children and young people
6. Consistent high standards of co-operation, joint working and
communication where more than one agency needs to be involved,
locally and across Scotland
7. A lead professional to co-ordinate and monitor multi agency activity
where necessary
8. Maximise the skilled workforce within universal services to address
concerns at the earliest possible time
9. A confident and competent workforce across all services for children,
young people and their families
10. The capacity to share demographic, assessment and planning
information electronically within and across agency boundaries through
the national e-Care programme where appropriate
The Getting it Right for Every Child practice model consists of three main
elements:
 Eight Well being Indicators
 The My World Triangle
 The Resilience Matrix
Well being Indicators
The eight wellbeing indicators have been identified as areas in which children
and young people need to progress in order to do well and in the future. The
indicators allow practitioners to structure information which may identify needs
and concerns and to structure planning for the child or young person. The
eight well-being indicators are: safe, healthy, active, achieving nurtured
respected responsible and included, (SHANARRI Appendix 2).
The My World Triangle (figure 2, page 7)
The My World Triangle introduces a mental map that helps practitioners
understand a child or young person's whole world. It can be used to explore
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their experience at every stage, recognising there are connections between
the different parts of their world and, in assessment, can be used to explore
needs and risks.
The Resilience Matrix (Appendix 3)
The Resilience Matrix can be used in a single or multi agency environment. It
supports practitioners to analyse the more complex information they have
gathered, using my World Triangle and other sources to so that the balance
between vulnerability and resilience and adversity and protective factors can
be weighed.
Overall the GIRFEC practice model (figure 1, page 7) consists of six parts.
Practitioners will combine some or all of these parts most appropriate to the
needs of the child when undertaking assessments.
The six parts are:
 The well being indicators to record and share information that may
indicate a need or concern and then take appropriate action
 The use of My World Triangle (and where appropriate specialist
assessments) to explore this information and to gather further
information about the needs of a child or young person.
 The use of the resilience matrix to help organise and analyse
information
 Summarising needs against the well being indicators
 Constructing the child plan and taking appropriate action
 Reviewing the child's plan.
Further details of this can be found on www.scotland.gov.uk/gettingitright
website.
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Figure 1 - GIRFEC Practice Model
Figure 2
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The Integrated Assessment Framework
To support the GIRFEC expectations and ethos of joint ownership and
delivery of services, the integrated assessment framework provides all
agencies with guidance to their role in assessment, analysis and care
planning.
The integrated assessment framework aims to facilitate the process of
undertaking different forms/depths of assessment that are proportionate
depending on the needs of the child and purpose of assessment.
The assessment framework consists of four parts:
Part 1 - Multi agency initial concern, assessment and referral tool
Part 2 Adult services and parental support
Part 3 Core and comprehensive assessment and Child’s Plan.
The details of these are all located in the Integrated Children's Services
website.
Part 1- Multi agency initial concern, assessment and referral tool.
This is a document that can be used to alert another agency of concerns, can
be used as a stand alone initial assessment and can also be used as a
referral document when required to send to any other agency for additional
support. This can be carried out by almost any practitioner in any agency and
the child's plan should be attached, wherever possible.
An initial assessment can be based on one home or two home visits or selfreferral or referral from another agency. Refer to Part 1 of the integrated
assessment framework for further detail.
Part 2- Adult services and parental support.
It is recognised that staff working in adult services undertake their own
assessments, for example single shared assessment, care pathways. The
importance of staff working with adults who have responsibility for caring for
children cannot be underestimated. For the purposes of this integrated
assessment framework, the relevance is for adults who have children or who
may have the care of children, or who may have contact with a child on a
regular basis.
Part 3 - Core and Comprehensive Assessment and Child’s Plan
The Core and Comprehensive Assessment currently is undertaken predominately
by social work and will be the lead agency responsible for integrating core and
comprehensive assessments. These assessments should be proportionate to
the needs of the child. There are separate forms for the Core Assessment
depending on whether the case is Child Care or Child Protection. But all
Comprehensive assessments are completed on the same form.
Each of the forms has a child’s plan designed to help all staff working with
children and families think about the needs of children in a child focussed
way.
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The plan is for any child or young person where there is a concern or where
assessments show that the child may need additional support so that they can
be safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and
included.
Principles Underpinning the Assessment Framework
This framework stresses the need for evidence based practice, multi
disciplinary assessments and direct work with children, young people and
their families. The following principles should guide all assessment work with
children, young people and their families. These principles apply to any
agency that undertakes an assessment and those agencies that contribute to
an assessment.
The GIRFEC values and principles as stated earlier should
be taken account of as well as the following:
 recognise that children are children first, whatever may distinguish
some children from others;
 recognise that each child is an individual and unique;
 be child-centred and address the developmental needs of each child;
 take an approach which locates the child within the family and the
wider community;
 recognise and respect the responsibility and rights of parents;
 ensure that the child has a right to express his/her views and have
these views taken seriously;
 ensure equality of opportunity;
 involve partnership working with children and families;
 build on strengths as well as identifying difficulties or concern;
 be inter-agency in approach and in the provision of services;
 be a continuous process and not a single event;
 be grounded in evidence based knowledge and
 be non-discriminatory.
Information Gathering
One of the fundamental components of assessment is information gathering.
All agencies undertaking an assessment need to consider which other agency
may be involved with the child and family. As well as sharing information with
another agency, individual agencies should also ensure that they have shared
information or undertake checks with other departments within their own
agency. For example, social workers should undertake direct checks with
other departments in the social work department (community care and
criminal justice services) as well as other parts of children's services.
Information Sharing
The sharing of appropriate information is crucial to ensuring that services can
jointly assess to ensure that appropriate services are developed and delivered
to and with children and their families. There are multi agency protocols in
place that detail the importance of information sharing. Copies can be found
on the ICS Website.
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Recording of information
Each agency will have their own recording systems but as an example, all
professional meetings (e.g. core group, Initial Referral Discussions (IRD's) will
be minuted and include an action plan with timescales and person responsible
for progressing the action, this should be contained in a child's plan. For those
involved in these meetings, the agency will receive a copy of the minute
Promoting Inclusive Practice
Practitioners have to take account diversity in children, understand its origins
and pay careful attention to its impact on a child’s development and the
interaction with parental responses and wider family and environmental
factors.
When assessing a child’s needs and circumstances, care has to be taken to
ensure that issues, which fundamentally shape children’s identity and
wellbeing, their progress and outcomes, are fully understood and incorporated
into an assessment.
“Issues of race and culture cannot be added to a list for separate
consideration during an assessment; they are integral to the assessment
process. From referral through to core assessment, intervention and
planning, race and culture have to be taken account of using an holistic
framework for assessment.” Dutt and Phillips (Department of Health, 2000a).
Use of the framework requires that children and families’ differences must be
approached with knowledge and sensitivity in a non-judgemental way.
Ignorance can result in stereotyping and an inappropriate or even damaging
assumptions being made, resulting in a lack of accuracy and balance in
analysing children’s needs and parenting capacity.
To achieve sensitive and inclusive practice, staff should avoid:
 using one set of cultural assumptions and stereotypes to understand
the child and family’s circumstances;
 insensitivity to racial and cultural variations within groups and between
individuals;
 making unreasoned assumptions without evidence;
 failing to take account of experiences of any discrimination in an
individual’s response to public services;
 failing to take account of the barriers which prevent the social
integration of families with disabled members; and
 Attaching meaning to information without confirming the interpretation
with the child and family members.
Protecting and Promoting Welfare
For all assessments:
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 there must be clarity of purpose about the questions to be answered by
the assessment process;
 evidence, and not unsubstantiated opinion, of what is seen, heard and
read must be carefully collected and recorded;
 attaching meaning to the information collected must distinguish the
child’s and family’s understanding from that of professionals;
 there must be clarity about the sources of knowledge which inform
professional judgement;
 severity, immediacy and complexity of the child’s situation will have
important influences on the pace, scope and procedural formality of
assessment;
 co-ordinated and holistic assessments must be followed by judgement
leading to clear decisions and co-ordinated and holistic planning and
intervention/action; and
 there has to be clarity about what has to change, how it will be
achieved, in what timescale and how it will be measured and reviewed
Some of the important questions that will determine the process of
assessment are, for example:
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What are the strengths to be built on?
What are the difficulties that need addressing?
What are the best options for this child?
How will this child cope with services/intervention?
How well is this child doing (following intervention/services/placement)?
What is the impact on the child and family?
Does the plan need amending?
Dimensions of a Child's Development Needs - (Appendices 4 & 5a &b)
When practitioners are undertaking an assessment of a child’s developmental
needs they should:
 identify the developmental areas to be covered and recorded;
 plan how developmental progress is to be measured;
 ensure proper account is taken of a child’s age and stage of
development; and
 Analyse information as the basis for planning future action.
It would be beneficial when undertaking assessments that a statement is
made about what is the developmental stage of a child, e.g. a child of age 1-3
years should be standing, walking, picking up small objects, whereas child A
has poor physical development and co-ordination. This is an example only
and reference should be made to the developmental charts (Appendix 5a and
5 b).
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Dimensions of Parenting Capacity - (Appendix 6)
The assessment of parenting capacity is integral to all assessments of
children and young people.
Parenting capacity refers to parents' ability to nurture their children, protect
them from risk and enhance their developmental experiences. Parenting
capacity is the ability to parent in a good enough manner long term. It is
different from parenting ability where an individual may be able to parent for a
short period of time in specific circumstances but not have the capacity to
parent effectively long term.
Family and Environmental Factors - (Appendix 7)
The care and upbringing of children does not take place in a vacuum. All
family members are influenced both positively and negatively by the wider
family, the neighbourhood and social networks in which they live. The history
of the child's family and of individual family members may have a significant
impact on the child and parents. An adult’s capacity to parent may be
crucially related to his or her childhood experiences of family life and past
adult experiences prior to the current difficulties.
Special attention should be given to the needs of disabled children who
experience multiple caregivers as part of their regular routine, and to their
need for reasonable continuity of caregivers.
Assessment of Children in Special Circumstances (Appendix 8)
Some of the children referred for help because of the nature of their problems
or circumstances, will require particular care and attention during assessment.
These are children who may become 'lost' to the statutory agencies, whose
wellbeing or need for immediate services may be overlooked and for whom
subsequent planning and intervention may be less than satisfactory.
Analysis of need and assessment
At the conclusion of any assessment, there should be clear summaries which
identify from the information gathered, the child’s developmental needs,
parenting capacity and family and environmental factors. The My World
Triangle encompasses these by brining together the assessment that covers
 What I Need from People Who Look After Me (Appendix 9)
 How I Grow and Develop
(Appendix 10)
 My Wider World
(Appendix 11)
In weighing up the impact that various factors have on a child, it has to be
borne in mind that not all factors will have equal significance and the
cumulative effect of some relatively minor factors may be considerable. The
analysis of a child’s needs requires drawing on multi agency information
sharing, professional judgement and an understanding of the child’s needs
within his or her family.
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Making Judgements (Appendix 12)
It is very important to ensure that judgements are made and considered
before decisions are taken. The intervention should be considered first on the
basis of the assessment, identified need and what is known to best address
this need. The second stage is to make decisions regarding intervention.
Making Decisions (Appendix 13)
In drawing up a child's plan careful distinction should be made between
judgements about the child’s developmental needs and parenting capacity
and decisions about how best to address these at different points in time.
All assessments, judgements and decision making must be undertaken in a
non discriminatory way and adhere to the UN Conventions on the Rights of
the Child.
Chronologies (Refer to separate guidance)
A Chronology must be appended to any assessment and the Child’s plan.
This should outline significant events in the child’s life, derived from 1) the
agencies involved (past and present) records, and 2) contributions from the
child/family. The chronology plays a key role in any assessment of a child’s
circumstances and of parental capacity and motivation to work with agencies
to make any changes required.
NB Significant events should be events that inform the assessment and
demonstrate the impact on the child
The following table provides guidance for workers undertaking assessments
of children and young people. It is a guide only and professional
judgement should be made regarding the depth of assessment required
that is proportionate to the needs of the child.
Assessment
Part 1
Initial/child's plan
Purpose
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Part 3
Core/Child Care or Child
Protection/unborn baby
assessment/ child's plan
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From one agency to another when concerns
are identified and additional supports are
being considered. (all agencies)
Initial Assessment Report for the Reporter to
the Children's Panel
Section 22 Assessment
Report to Initial Looked After review (if core or
comprehensive report has not yet been
completed)
SBR for the Reporter and or children's
hearing this may include an ASSET report
Report for Initial Child Protection Case
Conference with Risk assessment.
S.23 - Report on Child with, or Affected by
Disability
S.24 - Report on the Carers of Child with, or
affected by disability
S25 - Assessment to consider whether or not
a child should be accommodated.
Report to 6 week Looked After Review
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
Part 3
Comprehensive/unborn
baby assessment/child's
plan
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Children and Young people looked after at
home
6 monthly Review Child Protection case
conferences, this will include an update risk
assessment.
Assessment of an accommodated child for the
3 month Looked After Review as a basis for
producing a childcare plan. This can include a
rehabilitation assessment.
Assessment to inform application for a
Permanence Order
Assessment to inform a Form E. (child in need
of permanency including adoption)
Glossary of terms
Social Work (Scotland) Act 1995
Section 22
The duty of a local authority to safeguard and promote the welfare of
children or in need by providing a range and level of services
appropriate to their needs
Section 23
Assessment of children with or affected by disabilities
Section 24
Assessment of Carers of Child with, or affected by disability
Section 25
The duty of a local authority to provide accommodation for any child
within their area if they consider hat to do so would safeguard and
promote the welfare of the child
Children's Hearings
IER
Initial enquiry report
IAR
Initial assessment report
SBR
Social Background report
Other
Form E
Report to an adoption or permanence panel where a child is being
considered for permanent substitute care
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