By Carol Benbow, April 2024.

Since the abolition of the death penalty, the decision to remove a child from his or her birth parents is the most life-changing event that the Family Courts can direct. As a Director and Responsible Individual for four residential family centres in the North West, the gravitas of any recommendations we make as a result of residential placements lies heavy on me and our Amber Family staff team.

Taking into consideration the 26-week timetable for the completion of care proceedings, a residential family centre placement provides an intense, focused, and if recorded correctly, a wealth of evidence to support the recommendations and outcomes of the placement.

When setting up Amber Family in 2014, Amber Family’s Service Director Gill Whalley and I searched for a parenting assessment to use which was specific to residential family centres and gave us the opportunity to observe, monitor and collect evidence from our privileged position of sharing our lives for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 13 weeks with families placed with us by the Local Authority. There was nothing available. We set about to change this.

Impact Assessment has been developed to support EVERY parent, regardless of learning ability, to engage in and steer their own parenting assessment. We tell every parent who arrives at Amber Family that they are responsible for writing their own assessment – we just record and provide support and feedback. Impact has enabled us to do this consistently, fairly and in partnership with families placed with us.

At Amber Family, we exclusively use the Impact Assessment tool which enables the whole staff team to make meaningful contributions to the assessment. Impact ensures that only meaningful observations are recorded under 18 assessment areas. This consistent approach ensures that there is a continual opportunity to monitor, safeguard and collate robust evidence for the family’s assessment. Reviewing progress weekly ensures there is further review consideration of ‘good enough’ parenting and other external assessment factors. The simple creation of a weekly summary report ensures there is a clear ongoing review of that week, in partnership with the parent providing further opportunity to target teaching, identify areas of required support and recognise things done well.

Every single observation is recognised as a valuable part of the assessment; therefore the observer applies a ‘score’ of amber (ongoing – further support needed) green (achieved) or red (safeguarding – intervention required). As this same method is applied throughout the whole assessment, it builds a clear visual heatmap that tells the story of the parents’ assessment journey. As this is shared with the parent each week, it supports the development of the working relationship and leads to a sense of ownership and investment in the process, rather than the assessment being based on a “one-time” scoring opportunity.

During this assessment, we can easily identify any shortfalls in knowledge or practice, and amongst a wealth of other direct work we undertake with the families at Amber, we also offer a series of eight parenting courses to complement the Impact Assessment software. Parents are given the opportunity to engage in this training, but it is not mandatory, leaving the parents to independently demonstrate their willingness to learn and commitment to the assessment process.

We want parents placed at Amber Family to leave us, whatever the outcome of their assessment, feeling that their assessment has been undertaken “with them” rather than “at them”, being kept informed of their progress and our expectations every step of the way. I’m confident that the majority of the 50+ families who have been assessed using the Impact Assessment tool over the last 2 years at Amber Family, will support and endorse this view, regardless of the outcome of their placement. I look forward to Impact becoming the industry leader for residential parenting assessments over the next few years.