The evidence base for protecting
and supporting Scotland’s
children - Getting it right for
every child
Jane Aldgate OBE
Professor of Social Care
The Open University
What is Getting it right for every child?
•A national programme of assessing, analysing
information and planning for children
•Getting it right for every child starts in the
universal services of health and education
•Getting it right for every child recognises the
part families and everyone working with children
plays in helping children reaching their potential
•Additional help should be proportionate and timely
built from the support every child should get
automatically from health and education
•Children and young people are at the centre of all
activity about them and their lives
•Getting it right for every child expect agencies to
work together to help all children and young people
grow, develop and reach their full potential
GIRFEC is about all children
GIRFEC is about all children – not just children ‘in need’,
not just those ‘looked after’, and not just those ‘at risk’
or with the most acute or complex needs.
It should not matter how a child’s needs come to light or
how they are categorised (child protection, offending,
young carers, LAC) . What matters is that help is
provided – where necessary integrated between agencies
- and that outcomes are improved
Change needs to take place on three fronts: culture,
systems and practice to help practitioners align
services to enable children and young people to grow,
develop and reach their full potential.
Why do we need GIRFEC?
Children fall though gaps
Children get passed from one
agency to another
Services screen out kids
Agencies don’t share information
Processes are duplicated
Key practitioners within GIRFEC
Each child will have a named person
in the universal services of health
or education who will trigger
additional help
There will be a lead professional
where two or more agencies are
working together
Characteristics of GIRFEC practitioners:
approachable and helpful
Children and families should feel confident
that:
•they can rely on appropriate help being
available as soon as possible
•the agency they first have contact with
will arrange for help to be provided, not
pass them on elsewhere
•meetings will be child and family friendly
and arranged to suit them
•their worries and views have been listened
to carefully and their wishes have been
heard and understood
A child and family friendly service
Practitioners will ensure that parents and children
participate at every stage by:
fully involving them in discussions and making sure
they understand what is happening at every stage;
•asking their opinions and seeking their consents;
•planning meetings, where they are necessary, at
times convenient for children and families;
•sharing information with them;
•constructing plans with them.
Four questions for practitioners
What is getting in the way of this child
achieving his or her potential?
What can I do to help this child?
What can my agency do to help this child?
Is there other help required to meet the
needs of this child?
What evidence underpins implementing GIRFEC?
• What is risk? Can it be overcome?
•Value of children and families being fully
involved
•The importance of each child reaching his
or her potential
•Developmental- ecological theory
•Resilience/strengths approach
•Uses a research-informed model of
risk/needs assessment and management
What do we mean by risk to children and can things
be changed?
Evidence from research suggests what happens in
childhood can have an impact on later life
Research also suggests a more optimistic approach to
creating turning points for children
There are many influences on children besides their
immediate family/carers although these are important
Though more difficult where children have suffered
severe harm, all children can reach their potential given
positive inputs and the right help at the right time
See Aldgate et al (2006) The Developing World of the Child, JKP
Value of children and families being fully involved
•
Children and families can understand why sharing
information with practitioners is necessary
•
Children and families can help practitioners distinguish
what information is significant
•
Everyone is included in seeing if a Child’s Plan has
made a difference
•
Helps professionals to behave ethically
•
Even in cases of compulsion, better outcomes are
obtained by working in partnership with parents
(Department of Health 2001, The Children Act Now –
Messages from Research, TSO)
Importance of children reaching their potentialevidence driven policy – the 4+7 model
The Scottish Government’s aspirations for all
children is that they should become:
confident individuals,
effective contributors
successful learners
responsible citizens.
This will be achieved by making sure children are:
safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, respected
and responsible and included
The 7 outcomes can be used to identify risk and need
and in making plans
• Initial concerns recorded
• What is getting in the way of child reaching the 7
outcomes?
• What has been observed, heard, identified?
• Why might the child not be safe?
• Is immediate action required?
• Where next? Single agency or multi-agency action
Is a meeting necessary or can help be given
immediately?
• In the Child’s Plan what needs to change in the 7
outcomes for a child to reach his or her potential?
• How will we know when changes have occurred?
An approach to development that recognises
the child’s whole world
• Grounded in developmental-ecological theories of child
development
• Emphasises interaction between child and environment
• Stresses multi-faceted key influences
• Identifies strengths and pressures
• Includes risk and need
• Includes immediate and long term risks
• Promotes timely and proportionate action
• Takes a resilience approach
See Aldgate, Jones ,Rose and Jeffery (2006) The Developing
World of the Child, JKP.
Assessing in more detail - gathering information about
an individual child’s world
Using the Child’s World Triangle to assess by
identifying:
•Need and risks
•Strengths and pressures
The Child’s Whole World Triangle
In cases of risk of harm from abuse and neglect, factors from
research (including assessing recurrence of harm), can used to ask,
What do I (the child) need to keep me safe?
Strongest associations include:
• Prior history of maltreatment
• Neglect
• Parental conflict (domestic abuse)
• Parental mental health problems
Strong suggestion of recurrence include:
• Parental substance / alcohol use
• Family stress
• Lack of social support
• Younger children
• Parents history of abuse
• Involved with social services
See Jones (1998) ‘The effectiveness of intervention’ in Adcock and
White, Significant Harm: its Management and Outcome, Significant
Publications Ltd.
Developing a model of risk assessment and management for
assessing, analysing information and planning within GIRFEC
• Brings together best of different approaches
• Combines knowledge, theory and best practice
Acknowledges management of risk important
• Rejects false certainty of actuarial models
• Immediate safety issues combined with long term
developmental risk factors
• Emphasises evidence-based practitioner analysis and
judgement
• Reinforces principles and practice of Getting it right
for every child
Sources: Aldgate and Rose (April 2007) ‘Risk Assessment and Risk Management in
Child Protection: The Application of Contemporary Thinking to Getting it right for
every child,’ unpublished paper for GIRFEC Team, Scottish Government.
Berry (2007) Effective Approaches to Risk Assessment in Social Work: An
International Literature Review, Scottish Executive
Immediate risk not enough: need to assess
the child’s wider world proportinately
•Risk/need factors in the child
•Risk/need factors in parent or caregiver
•Interactions between child and parents/carers
(e.g.attachment)
•Environmental pressures (e.g. risks/supports from
school and community, poverty)
•Protective factors and strengths on each side of
the triangle
See Aldgate et al (2006) The Developing World of the Child, JKP;
Daniel et al (1999) Child Development for Child Care and Child
Protection Workers, JKP; Jack and Gill ( 2003) The Missing Side of
the Triangle, Barnardo’s.
Analysing the information: a resilience/signs of
safety approach
•Signs of danger assessed alongside signs of
safety
•Underpinned by resilience theory
•Weighs strengths as well as vulnerabilities
•Links with developmental-ecological approach
A resilience approach for analysis
Resilience
Normal development under difficult
conditions e.g. secure attachment,
outgoing temperament, Sociability,
problem solving skills
Adversity
Protective Environment
Life events or circumstances posing
a threat to healthy development e.g.
loss, abuse, neglect
Factors in the child’s environment
acting as buffer to the negative
effects of adverse experience
Vulnerability
Those characteristics of the child,
their family circle and wider
community which might threaten or
challenge healthy development e.g.
disability, racism, lack of or poor
attachment
Ref: Daniel, Wassell and Gilligan (1999)
Child Development for Child Care and Child Protection Workers, JKP
Applying a systematic practice model in GIRFEC to
assessing, analysing and planning for all children in
need
1.
Using the 7 outcomes for all Scotland’s Children to identify
immediate risk and need
2. Getting the child and family’s perspectives on risk/need
3. Drawing on evidence from research and developmental
literature about level of risk/need and the likely impact on the
development of an individual child
4. Where appropriate, using messages from research to assess
what is the likely recurrence of harm (not actuarial tables)
5. Looking at the immediate and long term risks/needs to a child’s
development in the round using the Child’s World Triangle
6. Using the resilience framework to analyse the risks, strengths,
protective factors
7. Weighing the balance of that evidence and making decisions
8. Constructing a plan and taking appropriate action, including
reviewing the plan.
Putting the Plan into action: providing evidence of
change
•What is to be done?
•Who is to do it?
•How will we know if there are improvements
and risk has been eliminated or contained and
needs met?
•How will we review the child’s progress?
What is our evidence for the outcomes
achieved?