This is a guest blog, authored by our colleagues at the Centre for Justice Innovation: Sophie Carter, Vicki Morris, and Carmen D'Cruz.
We are pleased to share this series of blogs on pre-proceedings, delving into the critical aspects of managing and supporting families within the Public Law Outline (PLO) process. The first blog, 'Can we avoid getting there?' explores early intervention models such as Early Help, multi-disciplinary formulation, and the Family Safeguarding Model, which aim to prevent families from reaching the threshold for pre-proceedings. The second, 'Meaningful change in pre-proceedings', emphasises how using the pre-proceedings period effectively to gather evidence and support families, can increase the chances of diverting them from court whenever possible. The third blog, 'This is not the end', highlights the value of dynamic assessments and the potential role of Family Drug and Alcohol Courts model (FDAC) in providing tailored interventions that can prevent families from entering care proceedings. All three underscore how proactive, collaborative, and supportive approaches in pre-proceedings achieves better outcomes for children and families - and give practical examples of how to implement them.
As a family enters the Public Law Outline (PLO) process, it is crucial to all involved that the message is: ‘this is not the end’. As with the examples highlighted in our previous two blogs, effective intervention and support should remain the focus during this period. Overcoming the barriers that may have meant families have struggled to make the changes needed for their children by this point should continue to be prioritised.
While emphasising the importance of early intervention in avoiding families proceeding to court, we recognise that court is the right and necessary course of action in some instances.
That said, proceeding to court can also trigger much-needed behavioural changes. Where earlier intervention was not enough to produce change, the severe consequences available to the court – a concept known as legal leverage – can encourage families to take action. But in the meantime, the pre-proceedings period provides an additional opportunity to look at what support can divert families from care proceedings, rather than seeing them as inevitable.
Dynamic assessments
Despite meeting the threshold to initiate the PLO process, the period gives the opportunity to bring the principles of dynamic assessments to the forefront of decision-making. These principles recognise that family circumstances and relationships are dynamic and can change rapidly, which means the assessment process has to be dynamic as well. Dynamic assessments help practitioners to combine assessment with intervention, and ensures they can update their analysis and progress on an ongoing basis. This helps to develop a more robust prognosis and assessment of a family’s ability to make and sustain changes, meaning they can directly feed into the decision making as to whether, on review, pre-proceedings can be de-escalated or proceedings need to be issued.
Dynamic assessments are underpinned by formulation and actively take into consideration:
The risk and harm for the child(ren);
The parental and systemic drivers to risk;
Mitigating and resilience factors for the family;
The effectiveness of the interventions being offered (and whether these are tailored, timely and realistic);
The responsiveness to effective interventions and the application of learning and practice; and
The child(ren)’s needs and timescales.
Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDAC) – using the model in pre-proceedings
Dynamic assessments, underpinned by formulation and with a multidisciplinary approach, are a fundamental element of FDACs. Although primarily focused on providing an alternative route through care proceedings, the model has also been used by a number of FDAC sites to work with families in pre-proceedings.
The Black Country and Pan London FDAC services have been successfully working with families in the pre-proceedings stages of PLO, with the fundamental aims of:
Diverting families away from care proceedings if this is the safest option;
Reducing the drift of pre-proceedings stages through the structured approach and consistency in coordination;
Enabling timelier decisions on progression to court, with dynamic assessment and formulation being completed within the team;
Reducing the number of individual expert assessors being instructed for each case;
Establishing a therapeutic relationship with the team early and embedding families in appropriate treatment and support; and
Reducing the time dedicated to initial assessments and stabilisation work should a family have to go to court for care proceedings.
In the last financial year, it has been reported that up to 53% of families working with these FDAC teams within pre-proceedings reduced their risk of going to court and did not enter proceedings. Those that did enter proceedings experienced higher reunification rates than standard proceedings, and the additional benefits of the increased intensity of the trauma-informed interventions, with recommendations being made in a timelier way.
Even without an FDAC team, the learning and ethos from FDAC can be applied to assessments in pre-proceedings. There is an established sub-group of the Public Law Working Group which is continuing to shine a spotlight on this. The following are critical to the success of the model:
A collaborative, consistent, change-focused approach;
Consistency in practitioners, supporting the development of therapeutic relationships;
Trauma-informed practice where parents are recognised as the solution;
Dynamic assessments seeing the child in the context of their family and community;
Accessible language and documentation, written for the family with the aim to support change;
Multi-disciplinary formulations;
Tailored workforce training and development; and
Additional consideration around the use of expert assessors.
Use of additional expert assessments
Over-reliance on expert assessments – and needing to complete additional assessments – contributes to delays in care proceedings, and this is compounded in areas where particular specialisms or expert assessors are in short supply. We are not suggesting that these assessments should not be used at all – there will always be times where expert assessments, and additional assessments, are necessary and beneficial to progress.
However, where it has been identified that additional assessments are required, it is recommended that these are able to take place within the pre-proceedings period, to give the families the best opportunity to make the changes required. There is recognition, for example, that if there are concerns around a parent’s learning needs, delaying an assessment of these needs until proceedings not only limits the opportunities for parents to be effectively engaged and receive the right intervention, but can also cause significant delay to completing the assessment when timelines are already stretched.
The ‘right’ use of expert assessments must be identified within a local area – and the answer will not be the same for all areas. In the Cheshire & Merseyside Trailblazer project, the area determined that the best way to tackle delays caused by commissioning additional independent social worker assessments is to establish an independent assessment hub staffed by the nine local authorities in the area (where an LA will review cases for the other eight when requested, but never their own). In other areas, it may be determined that the best way to commission expert assessments is to set up a joint commissioning agreement across multiple LAs, to ensure that requests are prioritised across a wider area and are well within the capacity of expert assessors in that area to handle.
Ultimately, the use of assessments is not purely a ‘court process’ – it is another vehicle that local authorities can use to deliver support and interventions to families in pre-proceedings. And when well-coordinated and collaboratively managed across a geographic area, expert assessments can deliver the right specialist input in time for families to make sustained adjustments during the pre-proceedings period, and improve their chances of being diverted from court.
If you would like to discuss the Trailblazers programme further, please get in touch with morgan.nasir-finlayson@mutualventures.co.uk
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