Risk Assessment Short Version Manchester
Risk Assessment - Stage 2
Significant Harm Supplement
Risk2children.co.uk
Risk Assessment – Stage 2 – Significant Harm SupplementSection 7 - Significant harm checklist and additional guidance
This Significant Harm Supplement can be used to assist the identification of significant harm in Section 7 of Risk Assessment – Stage 2. It includes a Significant harm checklist and additional guidance. The Risk Assessment – Stage 2 has already established the level of parental capacity and child needs, establishing both levels of harm and likelihood of this harm continuing. This Supplement may assist in completing Section 7 of the Risk Assessment form, which considers whether the harm is ‘significant’. The section requires workers to “record any factors, meaning or inference to the harm which may indicate that this harm is significan
Section 7 - Significant harm checklist
A single substantial act of abuse or a series of less substantial acts may indicate significant harm. Failing to meet a child’s needs or a minor injury which has major implications may also indicate significant harm. Substantial harm will not always be significant. Non substantial harm will sometimes be significant due to the inference or implications. This checklist assists the worker to identify indicators of substantial harm and aspects of meaning to the harm that would indicate that the harm was significant. Reaching a judgement about significant harm is complex. This checklist assists the worker to explore these key components and reach a professional judgement.
Section 1: Establishing whether the harm was substantial / Tick if “yes”
- was there a high degree of harm?
- was the harm extensive?
- was the abuse or neglect a series of events?
- was the abuse or neglect over a long duration?
- was the abuse or neglect frequent?
- was the harm intentional?
- was the harm premeditated?
- was there a threat present?
- was there coercion involved?
- was there sadism involved?
- was there a bizarre or unusualelement?
- were there any other factors that made it substantial?
Notes: Please record any additional comments
Conclusion: Was the harm substantial? Yes No
If harm is not substantial, it still may be significant. Please complete Section 2 below.
Section 2: Establishing whether the harm was significant
Please complete section 2.1 and any other sections that help you.
2.1: Cause of harm: / Tick if “yes”
- Was the harm attributable to the fact that the care given (or likely to be given) was not what would be reasonable to expect of a parent ?
- Was the child beyond parental control?
2.2: Type of harm: Acts of omission or commission / Tick if “yes”
- Was this done on purpose (act of commission)
- Was this done by failing to do something (act of omission)
2.3: What is judged reasonable for a parent
A: What would a reasonable parent have done in these circumstances?
- In these circumstances, did the parent behave in a “reasonable” way?
B: What is out of the ordinary about what happened
C: What is it that the parent does or doesn’t do that worries you?
D: What did the parent fail to do to meet the child’s needs or protect them from harm?
2.4: Finding patterns and likelihood
E: What has changed or needs to change to stop this happening again?
F: What is likely to happen in similar circumstances in the future?
2.5: Finding meaning, inference or implications
G: What is the meaning, message, implications or inference behind what happened?
Conclusion: The harm appears to be significant / Yes / Please record your decision in Section 7 and 8 of Risk Assessment – Stage 2
No
Your summary about significance, based on substantiality (section 1 above) and significance (section 2 above) should be recorded in Section 7 and 8 of Risk Assessment – Stage 2. Section 7 is copied below for convenience. If you choose to record your summary initially here, please copy and transfer your record to Section 7 of Risk Assessment – Stage 2.
7. Considering whether this harm is ‘significant’
Please record any factors, meaning or inference to the harm which may indicate that this harm is significant.
Section 7 - Additional guidance about Significant harm
This Additional Guidance draws together some of the key sources of information about ‘significant harm’. ‘Significant harm’ is the critical judgement across Child Protection processes. Where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering, or likely to suffer significant harm, Local Authorities have a duty under s47 of the Children Act 1989 to make enquiries. Across the subsequent child protection processes the question of ‘significant harm’ remains the focus of key decision making.
Multi agency meetings, such as Strategy Discussions and Child Protection Conferences will test the question about evidence of ‘significant harm’. However, whether harm is significant is a matter for the court to decide as a question of fact.
In this Additional Guidance, various references are bought together into single document. These include the information in Risk Assessment – Stage 2 form and guidance, Working Together 2010 and legal guidance. This diversity in guidance reflects the complexity of the subject. This also evidences the key sources for Risk Assessment – Stage 2 and the ‘Section 7 - Significant harm supplement’.
From: Working Together 2010
1.28 There are no absolute criteria on which to rely when judging what constitutessignificant harm. Consideration of the severity of ill-treatment may include thedegree and the extent of physical harm, the duration and frequency of abuse andneglect, the extent of premeditation, and the presence or degree of threat,coercion, sadism and bizarre or unusual elements. Each of these elements has beenassociated with more severe effects on the child, and/or relatively greater difficultyin helping the child overcome the adverse impact of the maltreatment. Sometimes,a single traumatic event may constitute significant harm, for example, a violentassault, suffocation or poisoning. More often, significant harm is a compilation ofsignificant events, both acute and long-standing, which interrupt, change ordamage the child’s physical and psychological development. Some children live infamily and social circumstances where their health and development are neglected. For them, it is the corrosiveness of long-term emotional, physical or sexual abusethat causes impairment to the extent of constituting significant harm. In each case,it is necessary to consider any maltreatment alongside the child’s own assessmentof his or her safety and welfare, the family’s strengths and supports, as well as anassessment of the likelihood and capacity for change and improvements inparenting and the care of children and young people.
1.29To understand and identify significant harm, it is necessary to consider:
- the nature of harm, in terms of maltreatment or failure to provide adequate care;
- the impact on the child’s health and development;
- the child’s development within the context of their family and wider
- environment;
- any special needs, such as a medical condition, communication impairment or
- disability, that may affect the child’s development and care within the family;
- the capacity of parents to meet adequately the child’s needs; and
- the wider and environmental family context.
From: Law for Social Workers, Brayne and Carr (Oxford Press 2003) page 320
The dictionary definition
When lawyers are looking for a meaning of a word that is not statutorily defined they turn to dictionaries. This is in accordance with the rule of statutory interpretation described in chapter 3. What we find is ‘significant: having, conveying a meaning; full of meaning, highly expressive or suggestive, important, notable’ (Oxford Dictionary). Fowler’s Modern English Usage says ‘the primary sense of significance is conveying a meaning or suggesting an inference’. This guidance appears to indicate that ‘significant’ encompasses more than just the question of magnitude of harm. For example, what is the effect of bruising caused by a child being pushed over; is it likely to be seen as insignificant as against a fractured arm caused by a parent hitting the child? The latter must amount to significant harm. Added to this is what an accidental broken arm amounts to. It may not be ‘significant’ or lead to any conclusion. If we are told the story behind the accident, a child left alone in the house perhaps, then it may be ‘significant’. The use of the dictionary definition was indeed endorsed in HumbersideCounty Council v B {1993] 1 FLR 257.
From: Social Work Law, Brammer (Longman 2003) page 195
There are three stages to the process of satisfying the threshold criteria and obtaining a care or supervision order. The first stage is to find ‘significant harm’. Significant is not defined. A single act of abuse may constitute significant harm or there may have been a series of acts which taken together cause ‘significant harm’. Guidance suggests that ‘the significance could exist in the seriousness of the harm or the implications of it’. In HumbersideCounty Council v B {1993] 1 FLR 257, ‘significant’ was described as , ‘considerable or noteworthy or important’.
The following brief examples illustrate the difficult in assessing significant harm.
- A child aged 4 months has a broken rib
- A child aged 6 months has faint fingermark bruising around the mouth
- A child aged 2 years has 20 random bruises of differing ages around the knees and lower leg
From: Risk Assessment – Stage 2: Section 7 Considering whether this harm is ‘significant’
Harm may become significant when there is an additional meaning or inference to the harm. For example, a child with a broken arm will have suffered harm. This may be ‘significant’ if there are concerns that it was inflicted by the carer on purpose, through neglecting to keep the child safe in a hazardous environment, or not seeking timely treatment. Significant harm is often incident based, but longer term neglect may also constitute ‘significant harm’. Reaching a professional decision about whether the unmet needs constitute harm and whether this harm is significant is a complex judgement. As a part of this risk assessment please record the factors that may indicate that this harm is ‘significant’
From: Risk Assessment – Stage 2: Guidance
What is ‘harm’?
Harm may be caused when a child’s need is unmet. This harm can be caused through ‘acts of commission’ [on purpose, such as an injury] or ‘acts of omission’ [where it has happened through an element of neglect, e.g. impairment of healthy development].
Harm is defined in the Children Act 1989 as “ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development”. The judgement therefore for Social Services is whether a child’s needs remaining unmet, results in ill-treatment or impairment. The scope of ‘impairment’ includes impairment across the domains and dimensions of the Assessment Framework. The Adoption and Children Act 2002 has added to the definition of ‘harm’ which now includes impairment suffered from seeing or hearing ill treatment of another.
What is “significant harm”
Harm is sometimes “significant”. Harm may be significant where there is an additional meaning or inference to the harm. For example, a child with a broken arm will have suffered harm. This may be significant if there are concerns that it was inflicted by the carer on purpose or through neglect to keep the child safe in a hazardous environment. Harm may also be significant where the child is beyond parental control. Reaching a professional judgement whether the unmet needs constitute harm and whether this harm is significant is complex.
The judgement therefore for Social Services is whether it appears likely that there is significance to this harm. This is a judgement that is not formally tested until the Child Protection conference or proved in Court during Legal Proceedings.
The Children Act 1989 refers to significant harm in s31(2b) when determining in Court whether to grant a Care Order:
‘(b) that the harm, or likelihood of harm, is attributable to—
(i) the care given to the child, or likely to be given to him if the order were not made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give to him; or
(ii) the child’s being beyond parental control.’
In s31(10), significant harm is developed as:
‘Where the question of whether harm suffered by a child is significant turns on the child’s health or development, his health or development shall be compared with that which could reasonably be expected of a similar child.’
- 1 -