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The Risk Model

The ‘risk of significant harm’ is the legal threshold for statutory intervention by Children’s Social Care.  Making good quality decisions about risk is important to protect both the rights of families to private life as well as ensuring that the duties to protect children are met.

The Risk Model provides a framework for managing decisions about risk of significant harm.  Such a framework provides practitioners and organisations with a risk management system. 

The Risk Model was developed by Dafydd Paul of Gwynedd Council’s Children Services and Bruce Thornton of JBT Training.  It was initially developed to support front line social workers to undertake risk assessments as part of Court proceedings.  It has developed into a comprehensive risk assessment framework which has been implemented in several Local Authorities in England and Wales.  It has been subsequently modified for use by CAFCASS in family justice and in large metropolitan authorities in the areas of early intervention.

The Risk Model framework includes four key elements.  These are:

 

For more information about these four elements, please select the following:

  • Stage 1 - Risk screening of all cases routinely for concerns about significant harm.
  • Stage 2 - Risk assessment is a more comprehensive assessment of risk of significant harm. 
  • Pre-birth – Stage 2 risk assessment for use in pre-birth assessments
  • Other tools - Specialist assessment tools to focus on specific areas of concern.