1.5.5 Sibling Group Recording |
SCOPE OF THIS APPENDIX
This Appendix should be read in conjunction with the Recording Policy, which was issued in November 2009.
Contents
1. Context
Practitioners within CYPT Social Work often work with sibling groups and therefore the recording of standard information across the sibling group is also often an issue.
The Integrated Children's System (ICS) was set up with a number of principles within it. One of these was that children within a sibling group should have individualised records. The practice principle behind this is that all children within a sibling group should be assessed and worked with on the same basis according to their individual needs. This is trying to counter the risk that individual children within a sibling group will have their own needs 'lost' due to the competing needs of the other members in the family unit. Whilst certain needs and issues within a family will be relevant across all of the children in that family some will be specific to one child only and should therefore be recorded as such, rather than simply being duplicated across all of the children's records.
CareFirst will allow the practitioner to use certain functions such as the Duplicate Button and/or Cut & Paste that will enable individualised records to be created for children whilst also helping to minimise the recording time that such a task entails for busy staff members.
Example
For the benefit of these guidance notes we will imagine that a practitioner is the allocated worker for a sibling group of 3 children. The notes will now examine how and when the Duplicate & Cut & Paste functions can be used.
2. Step1
Open and fill out the CareAssess assessment document that you want to add to the children's records- e.g. - Initial Child Protection Conference SW Report.
Fill out the form relevant to that child's individualised needs and from their point of view. Within some sections it may be appropriate to write in generalised terms- e.g.- parental attributes, parents own views, whilst in others the text added should be only relevant to that particular child- e.g.- Child's Needs section, child's views section.
Complete the document in the usual way- after notifying the relevant IRO & Manager.
Use the Duplicate function to copy this form to the other members of the sibling group.
2. Step 2
Go into the record for the sibling- you will find that the SW ICPC Report has now appeared on their record. Go into the document selected.
You now need to make the report for the sibling relevant to their needs rather than simply being an exact copy of the original sibling's record.
This is a 2 stage process.
Stage 1
The system becomes confused to a degree about Duplicates. If you do not adhere to the following process the system will give you a number of Validation errors at the end of the document when you try to Finish & Save it.
Whenever you come to a piece of information in the siblings document that allows you to Remove the duplicated information you need to select this. This typically covers all information such as Child's Needs, Relationships, & Ethnicity.
You need to use the Remove function to remove that text copied through from the sibling's document. Once this has been done you need to press the Peek Button next to it, to re-highlight the answer you have just removed. By using the Grab function you can then re-select the answer & place it back in the document.
You can then use the Edit function to change the text so that it is relevant specifically to that child only & not the siblings. This must be done in the Child's Needs section.
Stage 2
In the areas of the document not affected by the issues above you are faced with text boxes containing answers directly copied over from the sibling's record. These need to be checked so that this document can be read from the point of view of the subject & not the sibling- you will need to check these boxes to make sure the subject's name is the first one mentioned for example. Particular attention needs to be given to text boxes that record the Child's Views and the Analysis.
When presenting the report to the Child Protection Conference you can present one main report but also bring separate Childs Needs sections for the two other siblings.
The Relationship between Core Assessments and SW Child Protection Conference Reports
Both of these remain key documents for practitioners- both in terms of the assessment process but also in terms of workers time and how they balance recording their work with actually visiting clients and trying to assist them.
Several sections of the Core Assessment form and the SW Child Protection Conference Report are the same.
The Child's Needs section will populate over in its entirety between the two documents.
Other sections such as the Parental Attributes section are almost identical and based on professional judgement you may feel that many or all of this section can be Cut & Pasted from the Core Assessment to the SW Child protection Conference Report. The main issue here to think about will be how much time has elapsed between the completion of the Core Assessment and the Child Protection Conference and how relevant the findings were to the current situation. This can only be a practice judgement. At the very least however it should give you a basic framework from which to make changes.
The Analysis section in the SW Child Protection Conference Report is very similar to sections within the Summary & Actions section of the Core Assessment. If you have recently completed a Core Assessment on a child you may feel that some or all of the Summary & Actions section can be cut & pasted across to the Analysis section of the SW Child Protection Conference Report. Once again this can only ever be a practice decision based on the specific case in question.
In this way however a practitioner regularly updating Core Assessments on their clients will also be completing sections that can then be used within their SW Child Protection Conference Reports- thus saving time when these need to be written
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