Tools
These tools and interventions are for use by any professional working with families and many can be used as soon as concerns emerge.
If you need guidance or support in using any of these tools, please contact the Locality Community Support Service.
Childcare and Development Checklist/ Neglect Toolkit
Child care and development checklist 2019, or Neglect Toolkit, assists early identification of neglect, informs decision making, supports assessments and planning and can also be used to track improvements, deterioration or drift. It should be used alongside, not instead of, whole family assessments such as the Early Help Assessment or Children’s Social Care Initial Assessment. Please see here for guidance on using the tool.
Multi-Agency Chronology (MAC)
This allows information to be systematically shared and merged across agencies, particularly within Child Protection Planning. It provides a quick view of a family’s history, gives crucial information about a child’s life experience, and helps identify patterns of risks and positives within a family. There are four documents to support you:
- Oxfordshire multi-agency chronology template – for filling in
- Example of a filled in Oxfordshire multi-agency chronology template (fictional family)
- Single and Multi-Agency Chronology Practice Guidance (fictional family)
- MAC 7 minute guide
The Parenting Daily Hassles Scale
- Daily hassles is a useful one-page scale tool looking at difficulties within a family. Other parenting support services and tools are available from your local Children & Family Centre, and online via the Family Information Directory Practitioner Toolkit.
Case Mapping Tools
Case Mapping is a suite of tools within the Signs of Safety/Wellbeing Approach to case management, which has its roots in the work of Dr Andrew Turnell and Steve Edwards. They are particularly useful for:
- Helping stuck/complex cases to move forward
- Improving risk and needs assessment
- Making sense of chaotic situations
‘Completing a case mapping is, in the end, simply a process of creating a map of the circumstances surrounding a vulnerable child. As with all maps, the Signs of Safety map needs always to be seen as a mechanism to arrive at a destination.’ (Dr Andrew Turnell and Terry Murphy).
Please use all the tools below in conjunction with the Oxfordshire Signs of Safety / Wellbeing Guidance.
- Oxfordshire signs of safety plan: Undertaken jointly between the family and professionals, this maps out risk, harm, danger, safety and strengths to: support planning; builds on strengths; address concerns and help parents be clear about what is expected of them.
- 3 houses Discussion Tool Oxfordshire: This tool asks the three key assessment questions of the Signs of Safety framework in a child-friendly way. This allows the child’s views to be captured to inform the planning process. For further guidance, see here.
- Oxfordshire Safety House Template and Guide: The Safety House explores five key elements about home life and supports safety planning in a clear and accessible way.
- Lived Experience of the Child – clocks and suns: This tool allows for close focus on the lived experience of the child by working through hours of the day or days of the week.
- Wizards and Fairies: This allows you to explore the three key assessment questions using different pictures and a different approach. See Fairy Wizard Discussion Tool Guide Oxfordshire and Wizard and Fairy templates
Toxic Trio (Domestic Abuse, Mental Health and Substance Misuse)
Domestic Abuse, Mental Health and Substance Misuse are often contributory factors in neglect cases. Check out the relevant themed pages for tools to support these issues or see here
See this page for a range of multi-agency tools for working with children and families across a range of identified concerns, such as the Early Help Assessment, Multi-agency Chronology and Threshold of Needs.
External Online Resources
- NSPCC Solutions-Focussed Practice Toolkit: This toolkit from the NSPCC provides inspiration for worksheets and activities to use, adapt or devise for the children and young people you work with, all from a solutions-focussed practice perspective.
- NSPCC: Neglect and its relationship to other forms of harm: Examining the relationship between child neglect and forms of sexual harm and abuse.
- Research in Practice Neglect Mapping Resource: Open access framework to build evidence-informed learning and development pathways in relation to child neglect.
- Early Intervention Foundation Guidebook: Evaluates early intervention programmes.
- Action for Children Resources for professionals working with neglected children: Provides tools for professionals.
- Department for Education Childhood Neglect Training resources: Exercises, guidance, presentations, hand-outs and family case studies, including a language of feelings and guarding against bias.