Healthy Families-TIP New Jersey
Operating Policy and Procedure
Section:
Assessment
Subject:
Assessment Tool & Procedures
Reference:
Critical Elements 1 and 2 (1-2 & 2-2)
Purpose: To ensure that sites use a standardized assessment tool to systematically
identify families who are most in need of service and to provide guidelines for assessing
potential participants.
Policy:
 Healthy Families-TIP New Jersey sites will use the Parent Survey as the
standardized assessment tool to systematically identify families who are most in
need of service.
 The Parent Survey assesses for the presence of factors including increased risk of
child maltreatment or other poor childhood outcomes (e.g., social isolation,
substance abuse, parental history of abuse in childhood, etc.)
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The tool is used uniformly with the target population so that families are assessed
in the same way regardless of who conducts the assessment.
o Assessments will be conducted as referenced in the HFA Core Assessment
training materials.
The program assures that all staff, volunteers and/or interns who administer the
Parent Survey complete assessment stop-gap training or HFA Core Assessment
training prior to administering the tool.
Procedures:
 Assessments will be offered to families who score positive on the screen or
otherwise as directed by the supervisor.
 Ideally, assessments should occur either prenatally or within the first two weeks
of birth.
 Assessments should be a face-to-face conversation between the parents and the
Family Assessment Worker (FAW), preferably in the home environment.
 Information will be gathered about the mother, father, and current intimate partner
(if appropriate), and will be scored separately.
 The narrative documentation completed by the FAW, shall indicate the following:
o the depth and detail of each family’s strengths, risk factors and needs
o the presence of factors that could contribute to increased risk for child
maltreatment and/or other adverse childhood experiences
January 18, 2012 / December 4, 2013/September 30, 2015
Healthy Families-TIP New Jersey…another program of Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey.
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o FAW’s are encouraged to document specific conversations that indicate a
parent(s) motivation for change (e.g. “I really want to finish school”, “I
want to stay clean for my baby”).
All assessments should be documented, scored, and submitted to the site
supervisor within two business days.
The supervisor should review all completed assessments within two business days
of receiving them from the FAW. Any assessments that score 40 and above
(high-risk positive) should be reviewed immediately for imminent risk factors and
referral.
All completed assessments should be entered into FAMSYS.
All assessed families will receive appropriate information and referrals.
Assessment services will continue even when home visiting services are not
available.
The assessment narrative will be kept in the participant file.
For the purposes of data collection, a positive assessment is an assessment with a
score of 25 and above. In other words, Parent Survey scores from 0-20 are
deemed “negative” assessments. However, the following practices shall be
followed in offering home visiting services:
o The Parent Survey score range for enrollment will be 45 and under. A
Supervisor may decline to enroll a particular family scoring less than 25
on the Parent Survey if the Supervisor believes that the family will not
benefit from services, and the program is at or near capacity.
o If a family’s Parent Survey score is above 45 the Supervisor has the
discretion to enroll the family, place them on Level 1-SS if necessary, and
provide linkages to appropriate services. If a Family Support Worker
(FSW) has a family or families on Level 1-SS their number of cases
should be adjusted accordingly.
o The following situations will serve as reasons that families will not be
enrolled with a score over 45:
 Staff safety and/or health issues
 The family’s needs exceed the program’s capabilities and the
family refuses linkages to other services. These services may
include, but are not limited to, substance abuse, mental health, and
domestic violence.
As a courtesy, the program shall contact all families assessed within 1 week
(defined by 5 business days).
January 18, 2012 / December 4, 2013/September 30, 2015
Healthy Families-TIP New Jersey…another program of Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey.