Stage 2 - Risk assessment is a more comprehensive assessment of risk of significant harm.
- Stage 2 is structured to gather and analyse information across eight areas.
- The risk assessment concludes with a 'Reason for decision' summary. This summary can be integrated into several processes, incuding the social worker's Report to Initial Case Conference.
Often referred to as Risk 2, the Risk Assessment is the second stage within the Risk Model. This is a comprehensive assessment of several areas that once analysed, provide the basis for a risk assessment.
These include the evaluation of the impact of parental capacity to meet a child’s needs against the degree to which the child’s needs are met. Any harm that is identified is categorised against the definition in the Children Act 1989 and the likelihood of harmful effects continuing is considered. The risk assessment concludes with a ‘Reason for decision’ summary.
The Risk Assessment (Stage 2) has been integrated into several child protection processes. For example, as precursor to the completion of the Social Work Report to Initial Case Conference. The risk assessment integrates into the social work report to Conference concluding with the analysis section.
Decision making is dependent on the information available at a point in time. Sometimes decisions have to be taken despite some aspects of a family’s circumstances remaining unknown. Risk 2 prompts the worker to consider if they have sufficient information to reach conclusions. If further information is required this is prompted. Enquiries may require routine information gathering. In other situations, the uncertainty relates to lack of clarity on a very specialist area of concern. For example, the parent’s capacity to change or in neglect cases the objective condition of a home and the impact of this on a child.
The Significant Harm Supplement is an additional tool which can be used when completing Risk 2. It was developed to provide additional assistance to workers in competing Section 7 of the Risk Assessment (“Considering whether this harm is significant”). It provides additional guidance in analysing significant harm, focussing on clarifying the two elements of substantiality of harm and its meaning. It has a decision tree to assist workers with decision making.
It was designed to support staff completing Risk 2 but can also be used separately to explore the potential significance of harm in other processes where a Risk 2 has not yet been started. Some Authorities have modified it to work as a standalone tool to screen for significant harm in Strategy Discussions or Section 47 Enquiries.
If there are other very specialist areas of concern indicated in the Risk Assessment, other tools are available. For example, a parent’s capacity to change or in neglect cases, the objective condition of a home and the impact of this on a child. A range of other specialist tools have been catalogued from a range of sources to provide this focus on a specialist areas. In some examples, new tools have been developed or exiting tools modified or updated for practical use. See Specialist Assessment Tools for more information.