Assessment and analysis

Practitioners should support children, young people and families to fully participate in discussions about what is happening in a child or young person’s world. Using the ‘My World Triangle’ allows practitioners, together with children, young people and families, to consider:

• How the child or young person is growing and developing;
• What the child or young person needs and has a right to from the people who look after them; and
• The impact of the child or young person’s wider world of family, friends, community and society.

How I grow and develop is where consideration should be given to factors in the child or young person’s life relating to various aspects of physical, cognitive, social and psychological development. In order to understand and reach sound judgments about how well a child or young person is growing and developing, practitioners must think about many different aspects of their lives including: learning and achieving, positive relationships with family and friends, self-confidence, independence and communication.

What I need from the people who look after me accounts for the critical influences of other people in the child or young person’s life. Parents/Carers normally have the most significant role, but the role of siblings, wider family, teachers, friends and community is also important. Considering the inputs from people surrounding the child or young person can indicate where there are strong supports and where other supports are required. Practitioners must think about a range of factors including: every day care and support, positive adult role models, knowing what is going to happen and when, and an understanding of family background, beliefs and culture.

My wider world reflects how the communities where children and young people grow up can have a significant impact on their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families. The level of support available from a child or young person’s wider family, social networks and within their neighbourhood can have differing effects. Practitioners must think about the local context including: employment, education, healthcare, housing and sense of belonging and safety.

In all cases, information should be divided into strengths and challenges faced by a child or young person and family. Practitioners should consider all sides of the Triangle in relation to a child or young person, but it may not be necessary to gather detailed information on all sides of the Triangle if this is not proportionate to the issues identified.

Many factors shape children and young people’s development from before birth, throughout childhood, adolescence and beyond. These include a mixture of genetic and individual factors (nature) and the child or young person’s experiences (nurture) in their family environment, learning settings and communities. This includes impacts of poverty, inequality and discrimination. Secure attachments to adult caregivers are crucial for healthy childhood development, future relationships and emotional wellbeing into adulthood. Adverse or traumatic experiences can impact on children’s healthy development and wellbeing. Children and young people can be more vulnerable to the impacts of adversity and trauma (compared to adults) because their brains are still developing and they are often dependent on adults around them to provide support and safety.

Studies of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) show that early, effective support is important to support resilience and mitigate the impact of adversity and trauma. Brain adaptability in childhood means children and young people are particularly responsive to healing interventions at this life-stage.

The My World Triangle examines key aspects of the child or young person’s wellbeing across the three sides of the Triangle. These enable practitioners, together with children and young people, to think about what is happening in a child or young person’s whole world.

Using the information to assess a child or young person’s needs: Practitioners routinely gather some of the information across the sides of the My World Triangle through their work with children, young people and families. The information gathered, alongside any assessments undertaken, should determine the need for (and right to) additional support. It is important to consider that what is happening on one side of the Triangle may have a significant impact on another side. There may be overlap between the different sides of the Triangle. Use of The My World Triangle should be proportionate to the need identified.

• What are the views of the child, young person and their family?
• What are the strengths, talents and needs of this child or young person?
• Which aspects of family relationships promote the child or young person’s development and wellbeing?
• How can the parent-child relationship be strengthened?
• What other factors are influencing the child or young person’s wellbeing and development?
• What would help the parents to support the child or young person to reach their full potential?

A child or young person’s age and stage of development should have a bearing on the assessment of their needs and the planning and actions taken to support them.

Children, young people and families should be supported to fully participate in discussions as the assessment of need is made, and be involved in decision-making, including receiving accessible information on the decisions reached and why.

All children and young people are likely to have strengths and also to face challenges in their lives. The balance between these is important, as is considering the strengths to be built upon and what can be changed to reduce challenges.

Practitioners should take account of factors that may enhance a family’s support, such as the availability of good relationships with extended family, friends or community, and factors promoting personal resilience. When adult services are working with an individual, they should consider how their help can positively impact upon children and young people.

To supplement an assessment of the child or young person’s needs or to explore specific areas of the ‘My World Triangle’ in more depth, practitioners may wish to make use of specialist reports from other professionals, including the third sector. These specialist reports may be made available through the family, or the practitioner may need to discuss with the child, young person and their family the benefits of securing these from specialists.

Any assessment is likely to draw on information from different sources. In some situations, a lot of complex information is gathered about the child’s wellbeing, development, caregiving and wider environment. 

Making sense of that information is crucial. This means weighing up the significance of what is known about the past and present circumstances of the individual child, the strengths and the pressures and alternative interpretations of information.  It may be critical to understand the relevance and implications of information, what gaps in this information there may be, and what improvements to the child’s wellbeing need to be achieved. An analysis must reach an understanding of what promotes or compromises healthy development for this particular child.

Careful analysis and interpretation of assessment information help practitioners to:

• think and debate with a child and family about what is important and identify needs or difficulties
• achieve an understanding or explanation about why these things have happened
• understand the impact of strengths and pressures on this individual child (see resilience matrix diagram below)
• reach an understanding with the partners to the plan about what needs to be improved
• consider what has been tried so far and what that has achieved
• identify the short and longer range aims in terms of improving the child’s well-being
• agree desired outcomes
• generate possible ways of achieving these outcomes
• decide which ways are preferable and in what timescales
• record the agreed plan, working with the co-ordinating Lead Professional to ensure that relevant assessment information, analysis, views, actions and timescales are integrated into the Child’s Plan

If a child or young person is considered to be at risk of significant harm, the concern and other relevant information must be shared using child protection procedures outlined in Part 5 of this guidance.   

In all circumstances, practitioners must take account of not only immediate safety, but also consider the impact of risk on other aspects of the child’s development.  The implications for other children in the family must be considered alongside the child who is the immediate subject of concern. 

Practitioners must consider the potential longer-term risks if early concerns are not addressed. For example, a child may have hearing difficulties or a history of non-attendance at school. Failure to address either of these issues is likely to result in significant impact on the child’s development.

The Resilience Matrix enables practitioners, together with children, young people and families, to consider characteristics that may cause vulnerability and factors that can contribute to adversity, alongside factors that create a protective environment and resilience within the child or young person.

The aim of this process is to consider the actions needed to support the child or young person by strengthening protective factors and resilience and reducing adversity and vulnerability.

The Resilience Matrix allows the practitioner, child, young person and their family to take the strengths and challenges identified from gathering information using the My World Triangle, along with any specialist assessments, and to group that information within the four headings of resilience, vulnerability, adversity and the protective environment.

The concept of resilience is fundamental to children and young people’s wellbeing and is used in assessments by practitioners from many agencies. Resilience in this context is understood as the process of children and young people adapting well in the face of adversity, stress and trauma. A focus on resilience is not to suggest that adversity can be overcome by individual effort or that children and young people should be able to be resilient in the face of severe abuse and neglect, or multiple adversities; it is rather to recognise children and young people’s achievements despite such experiences.

Evidence shows that a resilience approach should look beyond individual coping characteristics and should focus on changing environmental hazards and stressors, as well as enhancing individual, family and services’ responses and support. Research has identified a range of protective factors which support resilience, which include: support from a trusted adult, education, safe schools and neighbourhoods, financial security, participation in sports and community activities, and supportive social networks and communities.

‘Resilience’ as described above, is the process of children and young people adapting well in the face of adversity, stress and trauma.

The terms ‘adversity’ and ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)’ encompass various types of challenging and sometimes harmful experiences that can threaten healthy physical and psychological development for a child or young person. However, each child and young person’s response can vary. Trauma is one potential response; it is when a child experiences this adversity as extremely harmful or threatening. Multiple factors influence how children and young people respond, including the type and severity of the event, their existing attachment to trusted adults, available support, and wider systems.

Some children and young people require additional support to reach their full potential. This may be due to challenges they face as a result of poverty, health or other inequalities. Support may be needed to access resources (financial security, participation in community activities, and social networks of support): these are called protective factors.

Making sense of information: In beginning to use the Resilience Matrix, practitioners should understand that any assessment is likely to require information from several sources and a lot of information may be gathered for this purpose. Making sense of that information is a crucial next step before making a plan for action. Analysis can often be missed out in assessments, but it is a critical part of understanding what all the information means.

Careful analysis and interpretation of information is essential to support and enable practitioners:

• To identify challenges or difficulties;
• To explain why these have arisen;
• To understand the impact of strengths and pressures on an individual child or young person;
• To consider the needs of the child and young person;
• To consider how these needs relate to the child or young person’s rights;
• To help children, young people and families to discuss and agree with them what support they can access;
• To describe desired outcomes and the impact of proposed support, with measurements in place to review over time; and
• To construct the child’s plan

Many children and young people who need additional help are experiencing difficult conditions. This may relate to their health, their progress at school or what is happening in their family or community. A resilience-based approach fits closely with the aim of GIRFEC to build on the strengths in the child or young person’s whole world, always drawing on what the family, community and universal services can offer.

In some cases, it can be helpful to use the Resilience Matrix as a mind map to help practitioners, together with children, young people and their families, make sense of the information they have gathered and to plan what needs to happen next to improve a child or young person’s wellbeing. It is important to see every child or young person in a family as an individual because they may experience the same conditions in a very different way. For other children or young people who are experiencing more complex difficulties, practitioners have often found it helpful to make sense of information to identify characteristics associated with both resilience and vulnerability, as well as adverse and protective factors by placing particular details of the information gathered in each heading of the matrix.

The National GIRFEC Guidance (Part 1) 2022 outlines key factors for consideration in using the resilience matrix:

Assessing resilience and vulnerability: Practitioners generally find that the individual characteristics that enable a child or young person to grow up to be resilient (e.g. self-worth, problem-solving skills, self-esteem), are so intertwined with their experiences of parents, families (e.g. attachments, harmony, consistency) and wider environments (e.g. schools, neighbourhoods and friendships) that it is difficult to disentangle these.

Assessing adversity and protective factors/environment: It is emphasised that a resilience approach should look beyond individual coping characteristics and should focus on changing environmental hazards and stressors, as well as enhancing individual and family responses to adversities (Dodds, S., (2016)

Therefore, practitioners should explore the extent to which the environment is adverse or protective for the child or young person; assessing the factors that can be located from the My World Triangle that are concerned with wider family, school and community.

Children and family centred strengths-based approach: Focusing on the positives and the strengths in a child or young person’s life is likely to help to improve outcomes by building a protective network (Daniel, B and Wassell, S., (2002),Assessing and Promoting Resilience in Vulnerable Children Vols. 1, 2 & 3, London & Philadelphia, Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd.). The information gathered and categorised under the four matrix headings by the practitioner can be dynamic and will change over time. For example, children and young people’s resilience will be affected by the situations faced by the adults with whom they live. It will, therefore, be important to try to predict how changes affecting caregiving adults may affect a child or young person. Predicting possible trajectories for a child or young person will help to make sure contingencies are built in to preserve their protective environment. If these contingencies are not considered, a child or young person’s resilience could be weakened by subsequent adverse events.

Daniel and Wassell (2002) point out that resilience is a complex issue and that nothing can be taken for granted when assessing the resilience of a child or young person. It is not always possible to gauge how well a child or young person is coping when faced with difficult experiences (Hill, M, Stafford, A, Seaman, P, Ross, N and Daniel, B, (2007), Parenting and resilience

A child or young person who appears to be coping well outwardly may be suffering internal distress and developing unhelpful coping strategies and defenses. This has been termed ‘apparent resilience’. Lifespan research has emphasised that there is always the potential for developmental change and, therefore, an ‘outcome’ is an ongoing process rather than an end point.

This is why it is essential to get to know a child or young person during the process of assessment. There are many factors associated with resilience, but Gilligan (1997) suggests that there are three fundamental building blocks of resilience (Gilligan, R., (1997), Beyond Permanence? The importance of resilience in child placement practice and planning, Adoption and Fostering, 2(1),12-20):

• A secure base whereby the child feels a sense of belonging and security.
• Good self-esteem – that is, an internal sense of worth and competence.
• A sense of self efficacy – that is, a sense of mastery and control, along with an accurate understanding of personal strengths and limitations.

There are some factors which may be both protective and also contribute to vulnerability or adversity. Practitioners need to exercise their professional judgement about how to make sense of these different aspects of information and weigh the competing influences. It will also be helpful to look at the interactions between factors because this may also influence whether the impact is negative or positive.

Attention to and curiosity about the experience of the child or young person and family from their perspective is also essential to this consideration. Practitioners will be supported by professional standards and line management structures in reaching decisions which rely on the combination of curiosity and judgement. Once an assessment has been made, it will be possible to consider what scaffolding of support should be put in place for the child or young person and family in order to strengthen protective factors and resilience, and reduce adversity and vulnerabilities.

Together with the child or young person, information should be positioned under the four headings of the matrix and thought given to the child or young person’s needs and the desired outcomes. These details should then be considered against the eight wellbeing indicators of safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included. Action may be needed against only some or against every indicator and it is crucial to ensure these actions are proportionate to the issues identified.

This analysis then forms the basis for decision-making with the child or young person and family and other practitioners on whether a child’s plan is needed. If it is agreed that compiling a plan is appropriate, there should be a discussion about what should go in it, including consideration of what actions need to take place to improve protective factors and resilience, what needs to happen to reduce adversity and vulnerability and who is going to carry out those actions.