A social worker or family support worker will carry out an initial assessment of your child's needs. They will want to involve you and your child in the assessment and seek your child's views, where this is possible. The assessment will concentrate on three main areas:
- your child's developmental needs;
- your needs as a parent or carer; and
- family and environmental factors
and will include information provided by other agencies.
As part of the assessment, your needs as a carer will also be taken into account.
The assessment will be recorded and shared with you. Following the assessment, the worker will discuss with you ways in which your child's needs and your needs as a carer could be met. This could be by:
- identifying services in the community you could use,
- a referral to other family support services and other organisations,
- or both of these.
If we can only meet the needs by providing social care services, a more in depth assessment will be carried out. This is called a core assessment and will be followed by a care plan.