What is an assessment?
“An assessment involves discussions with staff from social work, health or housing. The purpose is to look at what your needs are and how best these needs can be met.” (www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/Care_Support)
I intend to look at the assessment aspect of Children within Social work. Social workers cover a vast field but it is without doubt one of the most common and work providing areas involve working directly with children. Therefore it is essential that the child at all times is the Social workers number one priority.
Social work assessment and intervention are core skills for qualified social workers and fundamental learning requirements for trainee/student social workers. These skills have relevance to the Human Rights Act and featured in recent guidance on practice competencies and the latest occupational standards guidance for the Training Organisation for Personal Social Services.
Social workers work in a large range of settings with children/young people and families/carers. The most high-profile is child protection work, mainly in local authorities, but there are lots of other social work services, many provided in the Voluntary and Community sector.
The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well¬being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty. A historic and defining feature of social work is the profession’s focus on individual well¬being in a social context and the well¬being of society. Fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living.
Social workers promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients. “Clients” is used inclusively to refer to individuals, families, groups, organisations, and communities. Social workers are sensitive to cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. These activities may be in the form of direct practice, community organizing, supervision, consultation administration, advocacy, social and political action, policy development and implementation, education, and research and evaluation. Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs. Social workers also seek to promote the responsiveness of organizations, communities, and other social institutions to individuals’ needs and social problems.
Abuse is unfortunately a very vast area. It has been identified and widely accepted that there are four different forms of abuse. Physical abuse, this involves hitting, shaking, burning, poisoning, throwing, suffocating or anything else that causes physical harm to a child. Emotional abuse, this involves the persistent emotional ill-treatment of a child, which could cause long-lasting ill-effects on the child’s emotional development. It can involve telling a child that they are worthless or unloved, causing a child to feel frightened or in danger (for instance, through witnessing violence), or exploiting and corrupting a child. Sexual abuse, this involves enticing or forcing a child to take part in sexual activities (whether or not the child is aware of what is happening) or encouraging a child to behave in sexually inappropriate ways. This can include both physical and non physical contact. It may involve a child looking at or taking part in the production of pornographic material, or watching sexual activities. And finally neglect, this involves the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical or psychological need, which may result in damage to the child’s health and development. It can involve failing to provide food, clothing or accommodation or failing to get medical help when needed.
It is most...