All parenting capacity assessments will follow the ParentAssess framework. The comprehensive 12-week assessments are conducted in-house by our expert team, including experienced social workers and parent assess assessors. Our Social Work Manager leads this aspect, ensuring assessments are both rigorous and compassionate. Compass assessments focus on parenting capacity, family strengths, areas for development, and recommendations for the future.
Our Assessments look at paretnal capacity, strengths and difficulties, the environment and the wider network around the family.
We provide personalised support to help parents identify areas for growth while emphasising the importance of responding to their child’s cues. Learn how we tailor our approach, offering valuable insights and recommendations for continuing support.
Your questions answered
ParentAssess is a specialist framework that can be used to assess any parents, but was specially designed to assess parents with a learning disability or with additional issues such as:
It has been developed to ensure that parents fully understand and are involved in the process. Importantly, the child’s experience of being parented and their views are considered. The parent is also helped to understand the impact of their parenting.
The parent is enabled to understand the process and outcome. The whole framework is designed to be easy to read and understand.
The questions asked of the parent are no different than would be asked of a parent without a learning disability, so importantly the bar is not set higher.
ParentAssess covers additional issues that often affect these vulnerable parents, such as domestic abuse, offending, mental health, drug and alcohol abuse.
It is specifically designed for use in Family Proceedings and is Re D compliant.
The child’s experience of being parented is at the centre of the assessment. Issues such as attunement, attachment and the child’s developmental journey are considered carefully.
ParentAssess is based on the DOH Assessment for Children and Families in Need Framework 2000.
ParentAssess is a referenced assessment tool in the Good Practice Guidance onworking with parents with a learning disability(July 2021).
ParentAssess is a named assessment framework in the Welsh Guidance for social workers for families where the parent has a learning disability [HTML] | GOV.WALES.
We have trained over 1200 Assessors in at least 80 different Local Authorities and Residential Family Centres as well as ISWs.
ParentAssess has been used in the Family Courts since 2017.