Children's social care assessments

Social services usually only become involved with families if their problems or needs are complex. These families may need more support than universal services (like schools, health visitors, or youth workers) can provide, after an early help assessment of their needs. Social services may also become involved with a family if they have child protection concerns.

When social services become involved with families who are having problems, they carry out assessments to help find out what the issues are so they can work with the family to make things better. Assessments involve gathering details about a child or young person’s circumstances, to give a picture of their needs and whether they’re likely to be at risk. The assessment we carry out is called a Barnsley single assessment.

Barnsley single assessment

The Barnsley single assessment is an assessment of a family’s current situation. It helps us to find out if we need to provide any support for the family, and agree how we should do this.

We need the family's consent to carry out the assessment, unless we have concerns for the safety of a child. We aim to complete assessments within 20 working days, although more complex situations may take up to 45 days.

Who we involve in the assessment

We'll involve all relevant family members when carrying out the assessment. If they're old enough, children themselves can contribute as well.

We’ll talk to any extended family members, like grandparents, aunts or uncles, especially if they have significant input. We'll also speak to other services involved with the family, such as schools and health visitors.

At the end of the assessment

At the end of the assessment, we'll know that either:

• we don't need to provide further ongoing support to the family
• we need to draw up a plan of how we intend to support the family, and review this on a regular basis until they no longer need our support

A copy of our assessment will be available to the family, and we'll share it with any services already involved in the 'team around the child' (if one exists). We won’t share the family's personal details with other agencies if they prefer us not to, but we may have to do this if we think the child is at risk of harm.

If a child is at risk of significant harm, initial assessments can lead to a child protection investigation or child protection case conference.