Some cookies used are essential to providing a service, while others help us improve your experience and provide us with insights into how the site is being used.
For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Cookies page.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.
We'd like to set Google Analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone. For more information on how these cookies work, please see our 'Cookies page'.
We'd like to allow Social Media cookies to provide a richer experience. These cookies will allow us the ability to list Fife Council tweets and Facebook posts, Google maps, audio clips & Videos on some of our pages. Our videos use Youtube's privacy-enhanced mode.
These cookies allow us to show relevant adverts to the content you are viewing. They also provide the ability to deliver targeted online advertising across other platforms like Facebook, Google, Instagram and the Quantcast network.
Effective assessment is a continuous process that involves gathering and analysing information over time, across contexts, with a baby/ child/young person and their parents/carers, and with practitioners from other services .
The cumulative nature of neglect means its harmful effects build up slowly but powerfully over time, affecting brain development, emotional regulation, and relationships, leading to significant, often irreversible, long-term problems like attachment issues, learning difficulties, and mental health struggles, making early and sustained intervention crucial. Each missed opportunity for care erodes a child's foundation, progressively worsening their developmental trajectory and increasing risks for chronic issues in adulthood, such as poor self-esteem or difficulty trusting others.
The National Practice Model diagram summary below brings together the My World Triangle, Resilience Matrix, eight wellbeing indicators (SHANARRI) and the four contexts for learning within Curriculum for Excellence, to support overall assessment. It is intended to provide a structure to support practitioners, working together with children, young people and families, to make effective use of assessment information. This information will likely have been gathered from multiple sources, including regular information gathering processes on the progress of a child or young person with full participation from the child or young person.
If you would like to learn more about National Practice Model please watch this video: National practice model (video 4) or access: GIRFEC | Children in Fife
The Child Wellbeing Pathway (CWP) outlines the practice and process you must follow as a professional and practitioner in Fife, to ensure wellbeing needs and concerns are addressed appropriately and effectively. Click on link below for more information:
Child Wellbeing Pathway | Children in Fife
In Fife it is agreed that that rather than use one shared multi-agency assessment tool to assess neglect, professionals are encouraged to use a range of tools proposed within the National Risk Assessment Framework (2012) and licensed tools agreed within their own agencies i.e. Graded Care Profile Tool 2 or Family Star to understand and measure the quality of care a child is receiving. Please take a look at our Neglect Practitioners Toolkit where you can find all the information about the tools you can use in your direct work with children to help understand what life is like for them.
Assessment tools should not be used alone but to support and underpin a clear picture of the child’s unique experiences and we should always be open and honest about what tools are being used with them and why.
