2.1.3 Children in Need Eligibility Criteria |
Contents
1. Introduction
This document sets out the eligibility criteria for children’s social care in Lambeth’s Children and Young People’s Service. It is intended as a guide for staff in social care, and also for staff in other agencies who are considering making a referral, and provides answers to the following questions that are typically asked.
How serious does a situation have to be for social care to get involved and
When social care does get involved, what determines the speed of response? Where does social care fit in the overall range of services for children and young people? |
This section describes the changing context within which social care is working, specifically the development of a whole systems approach to identifying and meeting children’s needs, and the new Common Assessment Framework.
A key element of the current reform of children’s services is the move to integration of systems and processes so the needs of children and families are met in more effective ways and that the five Every Child Matters objectives are achieved. This development is supported by a whole systems approach where the needs of children and families lie along a continuum, and where services become increasingly targeted and specialised according to need. The recent DfES (Department for Education and Skills) guidance on the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) provides a model for this.
Click here to view the Common Assessment Framework Continuum Diagram
Source: The Common Assessment Framework for children and young people: Practitioners’ Guide (Department for Education and Skills, 2006, pg 6).
This model is based on a key distinction between children with additional needs and children with complex needs.
Children with additional needs are those at risk of poor outcomes. The DfES estimates 20% - 30% of children have additional needs at some point in their childhood, requiring extra support from education, health, social care or other services. This could be for a limited period, or longer term, and this is the group for whom targeted support within universal settings will be the most appropriate. Their needs with often be cross-cutting and some examples are included in the Needs Grids (attached as Appendix Five: Needs Grids - Lambeth Children's Social Care).
Children with complex needs are a subset of children with additional needs who have more significant or complex needs which meet the threshold for statutory or specialist involvement. These include:
Children who are the subject of a child protection plan;
- Looked after children;
- Care leavers;
- Children for whom adoption is the plan;
- Children with severe and complex disabilities, special education needs or health needs;
- Children diagnosed with significant mental health problems;
- Young offenders involved with youth justice services (community & custodial).
Statutory and specialist services include social care, the special education needs service, CAMHS and youth justice services. Children’s social care is a professional activity, governed by statute (the Children Act 1989 and subsequent related legislation, and accompanying Regulations and Guidance). (Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, which includes the definition of ‘child in need’, is addressed to the local authority as a whole, and although social care has traditionally been seen as primarily responsible for meeting the needs of children in need, it has never had sole responsibility for this because of the large numbers involved. Other local authority departments and other agencies have always made significant contributions to meeting these needs, and social care has always tended to work with those with the highest levels of need.) Its client group is children in need, as defined in the Children Act 1989, and children in need fall within the CAF Guidance definition of children with complex needs. Children’s social care is therefore a specialist and statutory service that deals with children with complex needs and their families.
The graphic representation of the Continuum of Needs and Services model (see continuum of needs and services model) is misleading in that it suggests equal proportions of children in each category. Children with complex needs are a smaller number within of the population than the diagram represents, and within that group, children in need are an even smaller group, despite attracting a high public profile through media attention. The DfES Children in Need Census in 2005 found that in Lambeth, social care was actively working with around 1,900 cases, about 3% of the total child population. This is in keeping with Government estimates. Further Lambeth statistics show that at any one time, about 1% or less of the total child population is looked after, and less than 0.5% is on the child protection register.
A preventative approach is at the heart of the current reform of children’s services, and the CAF guidance describes this in greater detail. Although all services are concerned with prevention, they do so within the parameters of their core business. An important element of the current reform is the range of government funded programmes and policy developments that are designed to support children with additional needs, and prevent their needs from becoming complex. These include children’s centres and children’s fund programmes, teenage pregnancy and substance misuse programmes, and the extended schools initiative. This has further helped social care clarify that its core business is with the smaller group of children with complex needs.
Social care’s role in prevention is with the cases that meet its threshold for involvement. For instance, it works to prevent harm to children where a risk has been identified, and works to avoid a child becoming looked after unless absolutely necessary. Social care can also have a role in prevention with children with additional needs by working with partner agencies in an advisory and consultative manner, so that children's needs are met while avoiding the direct involvement of social care. Children may meet the threshold for intervention for a particular period of time; however its aim, wherever possible, is to return the child to the general network of care available within the community when the specific issues or needs have been dealt with.
2. Social Care - Core Business
Children’s social care is a professional activity, and has a statutory responsibility in relation to children in need, as defined in the Children Act 1989, who are children with complex needs in the sense as set out in the CAF Guidance (see continuum of needs and services model).
The purpose of children’s social care is to ensure that the welfare of children in need is safeguarded and promoted, and that their needs are addressed promptly and effectively. In order to achieve this, children’s social care:
- Supports families of children in need by providing, or purchasing from other providers, a range of services aimed to minimise the risk of harm, keep families together and help children achieve improved outcomes;
- Protects children by investigating concerns of possible child abuse and taking the necessary protective action, including legal action;
- Looks after children who cannot stay with their families. This includes circumstances where family relationships have broken down or where there are severe parenting difficulties.
3. Eligibility Criteria in Social Care
Children’s social care eligibility criteria (or thresholds) are used to answer the questions about how serious a situation has to be for social care to become involved, make an assessment, and provide a service. They help social care manage its boundaries and prioritise its work by providing a systematic and rational framework to support professional decision making about cases. The key decision points are: accepting a referral, undertaking an assessment, and providing a service.
Application of eligibility criteria is not a mechanical, clerical exercise but an exercise of professional judgement at each stage of work with a case – from the response to the referral, through assessment, service provision and review. Assessments of needs carried out by Children’s Social Care are informed by the views of children and their carers; as well as by an awareness of ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural issues.
Eligibility criteria are essentially a guide to support the assessment of need, which is always a matter of weighing up the significance of information across all aspects of a child’s life, balancing intelligence about risk with that about the protective factors around the child, and the child’s innate resilience. Appendix One gives some examples of these.
Social care practice is firmly based on the Assessment Framework for Children in Need and their families (now incorporated into the Integrated Children’s System – ICS), which provides a structured approach to assessing and meeting the needs of children. This Framework addresses all aspects of a child’s development, family and environment, and these eligibility criteria follow this structure, the key elements of which are:
- Health and development;
- Education;
- Social, emotional and behavioural;
- Parental factors;
- Family, social relationships and the environment.
The eligibility criteria for social care can be summarised as follows. A referral will be accepted, and assessment undertaken where:
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More detail is provided in the Needs Grids at Appendix Five: Needs Grids - Lambeth Children's Social Care.
Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 requires the Local Authority to make enquiries to enable it to decide whether action is required to safeguard and promote the well-being of a child. Children’s Social Care will lead on a Core Assessment as a means of conducting the Section 47 enquires. The purpose of the Core Assessment is to determine whether the child is suffering from, or likely to suffer from harm and to assess whether action is required to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Health, Education and other services have a statutory duty to help the Local Authority carry the Section 47 enquiry.
Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 places a general duty on every Local Authority to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in need within their area. The Local Authority must, so far is consistent with this duty, promote the upbringing of children in need by their families, through the provision of a range and level of services appropriate to the child’s needs.
4. Making a Referral to Children's Social Care and What Happens Next
A flowchart of the basic processes in children’s social care, which are informed by these eligibility criteria, is attached as Appendix Two: High Level Flowchart of Key Decision Points for Children's Social Care.
4.1 The Referral
A referral is defined as a request for a service from children’s social care.
In order for a referral to be accepted, it must concern a child or young person below the age of 18 years within the area of the London Borough of Lambeth (unless they qualify for the services of the leaving care team). All requests for a service meeting these criteria will be accepted and recorded as a referral.
In order for social care staff to make an informed response, the referral needs to address:
- The nature of the concern;
- How and why it has arisen;
- What the child’s needs appear to be;
- Whether the concern involves abuse or neglect;
- Whether there is any need for urgent action to protect the child or any other children in the household.
The timescale for deciding the response to a referral is within 24 hours. There are a number of possible outcomes of a referral – no further action, information/advice given, referral to an external agency or acceptance and initial assessment undertaken.
4.2 The Assessments
There are three types of assessment undertaken in response to a referral.
Initial Assessment
An initial assessment is defined as a brief assessment of each child referred. This may include both newly referred children and those that are ‘known’ e.g. siblings of children currently being worked with.
The purpose of an initial assessment is to establish:
- Whether the child is in need;
- Which services or other interventions are likely to be required;
- Whether the circumstances are of sufficient complexity to require a core assessment;
- If there are potential child protection issues, whether a Section 47 investigation should take place.
The timescale for completing an initial assessment is within 7 working days of the date of the referral.
There are a number of possible outcomes of an initial assessment – no further action, information/advice given, referral to an external agency, commence a core assessment or Section 47 investigation, or provision of a service.
Child Protection Investigation (Section 47)
A child protection investigation is initiated under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, which imposes a duty on local authorities (social care) to make the necessary enquiries to enable them to decide whether they should take any action to safeguard or support the child’s welfare. Separate multi-agency child protection procedures govern this area of work. A summary of the criteria for undertaking a child protection investigation is included as Appendix Three: Criteria for Undertaking a Child Protection Investigation.
The timescale for completing a child protection investigation is within 15 working days from the date of the final strategy discussion/meeting.
There are a number of possible outcomes of a child protection investigation – proceed to an initial child protection conference (which has its own set of possible outcomes), provision of a service, information/advice given, no further action.
Core Assessment
A core assessment is defined as a detailed assessment, which addresses the significant aspects of the needs of the child and parental capacity to respond appropriately to the needs within the wider family and community context.
The purpose of a core assessment is to establish:
- The reasons for the problems, what needs to change and the capacity for change;
- Which services or other interventions are likely to be required.
- The views of the child, their carers and others closely involved.
There are a number of possible outcomes of a core assessment – no further action, information/advice given, or provision of a service.
The Core Assessment has to take place within 35 days of the date of the referral.
4.3 Providing Services
Social care services are only provided following an assessment and as part of a plan for the child. Their purpose is to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare, and to support their upbringing by their families.
Assessments inform decisions about what services to provide by addressing the following questions:
- What would happen to a child’s welfare without services;
- The likely effect the services will have on the child’s standard of welfare;
- Parental capacity to change with or without services.
The main service areas are:
- Families in need of support;
- Children in need of protection; and
- Children who need to be looked after.
Families in Need of Support
Families will be eligible for support services if, after an assessment, there is evidence they require a service to prevent or reduce the risk of harm, or the risk of family breakdown.
This may include advice and support with parenting, practical support in the home, financial help, or working with the formal or informal network in order to better respond to the child’s needs. These services will be set out in a plan.
Children receiving this service will not necessarily have an allocated social worker. Allocation will depend on the intensity and complexity of the services.
Children in Need of Protection
Following a Section 47 investigation, a child protection conference may decide that the child requires a formal child protection plan. Agencies will then agree a range of services, set out in a multi-agency plan. These will always include measures to safeguard and monitor the child’s welfare, and will invariably include support services designed to improve parenting ability and family functioning.
Children receiving this service will have an allocated social worker.
Children who Need to be Looked After
Remaining looked after increases the risk of negative outcomes, and at the same time is very expensive for the Council. These are the two reasons for working to reduce numbers of children looked after, and to provide support in other ways. Lambeth’s approach seeks to:
- Improve family support to enable children to remain living safely at home and, where possible, avoid the need for then to become looked after;
- If children do become looked after, work to rehabilitate them with their families are soon as possible, where this is in their best interests;
- If children need to stay looked after, focus on the most efficient way of proceeding to adoption or other permanency arrangements to minimise the time spent looked after;
- For all children who are looked after, ensure best value and most fit for purpose placements.
Children will be eligible to be looked after if, after an assessment, there is clear evidence that they meet one of the following general criteria:
5. Children With Disabilities
The Children with Disabilities (CWD) Team within social care specialises in work with disabled children and their parents/carers. The general criteria set out in this document apply to the work of this team, and this section describes additional specific criteria relating to the team. A child who is not eligible for a service from the CWD team may be eligible for an assessment or service from another team within social care.
5.1 The Referral (Children with Disabilities)
The CWD team will accept a referral if the general social care referral criteria are met (see above), and if the child is eligible for registration or registered on the Lambeth ‘I Count’ CWD Register as having either a severe or profound disability (Refer to the “Eligibility Criteria for Registration on Lambeth’s ‘I Count’ CWD Register” for guidance on what types of disabilities are mild, moderate, severe and profound) (See Appendix Four: Eligibility Criteria for Registration on the Lambeth "I Count" CWD Register)
5.2 The Assessments (Children with Disabilities)
The CWD team undertakes the three types of assessment described (see Section 4.2, The Referral), and will focus in particular on the implications of the disability.
5.3 Providing Services (Children with Disabilities)
The CWD team will only provide services following an assessment and as part of a plan for the child. In line with the rest of social care, the general purpose of services to disabled children and their families is to safeguard and promote their welfare, and to support their upbringing by their families. The criteria for the support, protection and looked after services described above also apply to the CWD team.
Families with disabled children often need support to manage the challenges presented by the disability. These can be related to the child’s need for additional care and supervision, to their communication and learning difficulties, and to their challenging behaviour. In addition, families with disabled children may also have an enduring need for respite.
Many services for disabled children are designed to provide specialised support for parents, and to provide short breaks for the family and a positive experience for the disabled child.
The CWD team will at any point in its contact with a family provide advice on the range of universal or specialist services provided by other agencies.
Children receiving this service will not necessarily have an allocated social worker. Allocation will depend on the intensity and complexity of the services.
6. The Needs Grids
This section refers to the Needs Grids that are attached as Appendix Five: Needs Grids - Lambeth Children's Social Care and are designed to assist in the decision making process.
Children’s social care is a professional activity and uses eligibility criteria as a guide to support the decision making in relation to the assessment of need and the management of risk. This always entails balancing intelligence about risk with that of the protective factors around the child, and the child’s innate resilience.
Decision about referral, assessment and the provision of services across social care always focuses on risk of harm and risk of family breakdown. In reality, children and families with complex needs present in a range of situations, and this section sets out a number of typical and illustrative examples. These are divided into levels of complex needs: one requiring an immediate or rapid response, and one requiring some urgency of response.
A third grid is included which illustrates a range of non-complex, additional needs. These are the needs in the pre-social care, middle segment of the continuum of needs and services model, where an approach within the CAF would be appropriate.
The structure of these grids follows the Assessment Framework for Children in Need and their Families (now incorporated into the Integrated Children’s System – ICS). The key elements are:
- Health and development;
- Education;
- Social, emotional and behavioural;
- Parental factors;
- Family, social relationships and the environment.
Appendix One: Protective and Resilience Factors
In all its work, children’s social care balances intelligence about risk with that about the protective factors around the child, and the child’s innate resilience. This appendix lists some of these resilience factors.
| a. | The adverse effects on children are less likely when parental problems are:
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| b. | Children’s ability to cope is related to their age, gender and individual personality. Children of the same gender as the parent experiencing problems may be at greater risk. Boys tend to be more at risk than girls in the short term, but when problems endure girls are similarly affected |
| c. | Children’s ability to cope is related to
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| d. | Children may also be protected when the other parent of family member can respond to the child’s developmental needs. In relation to problem drinking or drug use, children’s safety also depends on drugs and alcohol, needles and syringes not being easily available |
Appendix Two: High-Level Flowchart of Key Decision Points for Children's Social Care
Appendix Three: Criteria for Undertaking a Child Protection Investigation
A section 47 child protection investigation should be undertaken when any of the following criteria are met:
- Allegation or reasonable suspicions of serious physical injury;
- Allegation or reasonable suspicions of serious neglect;
- Medical diagnosis of non-organic failure to thrive in pre-school children;
- Allegation involving bruising and soft tissue injury to babies;
- Alleged abandonment (or leaving alone) where the child is exposed to danger;
- Direct allegation of sexual abuse made by a child under the age of 18 or an abuser’s confession of abuse;
- Any allegation which suggests that more than one child from different families has been sexually abused or where more than one sexual abuser is involved;
- When a Schedule One offender for a sexual offence moves (or proposes to move) into a household where a child is living;
- Any injury or allegation involving a child already on a Child Protection Register or abuse/neglect involving a looked after child;
- Allegations which relate to possible abuse or risk of abuse by someone who works or cares (either paid or voluntary) for children they are not related to, or who works in an environment where children are present;
- Allegations of offences involving unusual circumstances such as organised or institutionalised abuse, bizarre or unusual behaviour or medical conditions such as Factitious or Induced Illness (FII) or Munchausen Syndrome by proxy.
Appendix Four: Eligibility Criteria for Registration on the Lambeth "I Count" CWD Register
Click here to view Criteria Table.
Appendix Five: Needs Grids Lambeth Children's Social Care
Click here to view Needs Grids.
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