	Child Protective Services

Introduction

Administration and Management

Service Delivery Administration Standards

Service Standards

PA-CPS 7: Assessment

Families participate in an individualized, strengths-based, family-focused, and culturally responsive assessment that informs service and permanency planning.

Research Note: Tribal representatives, or individuals with knowledge of the tribe and tribal customs, should be involved in the assessment whenever possible and appropriate. Their familiarity with the child’s culture can improve the quality of the assessment by ensuring that it is culturally grounded and involves the family and tribal community.

NA The agency does not conduct assessments.

PA-CPS 7.01

The family is the primary source of information about the need for service.

Interpretation: Collateral sources of information should be sought to help confirm or enhance assessment information. The agency adapts the assessment process to protect the safety of victims of domestic violence.

Interpretation: Extended family members may participate in the assessment process if their involvement is culturally or clinically appropriate.

PA-CPS 7.02

The information gathered for assessments:

includes underlying conditions and environmental and historical factors that may contribute to concerns identified in initial screening, investigation, and risk and safety assessments;
identifies child and family strengths, protective factors, and needs;
includes the potential impact of maltreatment on the child;
includes factors and characteristics pertinent to making an appropriate placement, if necessary;
identifies potential family resources for the child and the parents; and
is limited to material pertinent for providing services and meeting objectives.

Interpretation: The child’s extended family and other community members should be considered as valuable family resources for the child and the parents.

Note: Refer to the Assessment Matrix for additional assessment criteria. The elements of the matrix can be tailored according to the needs of specific individuals or service design.

PA-CPS 7.03

Assessments are conducted in a strengths-based, culturally-responsive manner to identify values, beliefs, practices, and resources that can increase service participation and support the achievement of agreed upon goals.

Interpretation: Culturally-responsive assessments can include attention to geographic location, language, political status, tribal affiliation, and religious, racial, ethnic and cultural background. Other important factors that contribute to a responsive assessment include attention to age, sexual orientation, and developmental level.

PA-CPS 7.04

Assessments are completed within timeframes established by the agency and are updated periodically.

QUICK JUMP TO


	PURPOSE: Child Protective Services protect children from abuse and neglect and increase child well-being and family stability.

RELATED FILES


	SERVICE One or more organization-operated programs or activities that have a common general objective and deploy the organization's material and human resources in a planned and systematic manner. An organization that publicly promotes or identifies itself in writing as offering a service, is licensed to deliver a service, assigns personnel and/or space to a service, or allocates financial resources to a service is considered to offer that service.


	FAMILY Two or more people who consider themselves family and who assume obligations, functions, and responsibilities generally essential to healthy family life. Child care and child socialization, income support, long-term care, and other caregiving are among the functions of family life. The definition of "family" will rest with an individual's indication of who plays a family member role, including current or former foster family, adoptive family, extended family members, fictive kin, or significant others. Organizations that believe family is the central constellation in a child's life, and that family attachments are of primary importance for human development, will strive to work with professional staff to develop a common understanding of "family."


	ASSESSMENT An evaluation, which utilizes professional expertise and skills in the collection and analysis of data to understand and describe the nature of service needs of an individual, family, or group. Assessment, as in needs assessment, is also used to determine priorities of program planning and service development for the organization as a whole. See also DIAGNOSIS.


	PLANNING The process of specifying objectives, evaluating the means for their achievement, and exercising deliberate decision making about appropriate courses of action.


	CULTURE The customs, habits, values, skills, technology, beliefs, and religious, social, and political behaviors of a group of people in a specific period of time.


	QUALITY In this context, the extent to which contemporary and generally recognized standards for professional practice are met and exceeded, and desirable service outcomes achieved.


	COMMUNITY A specific group of people living in the same locality and who may share a common culture, values, and norms. Communities can also be defined by race, religion, ethnicity, age, occupation, political status, tribal affiliation, interest in particular problems or outcomes, or other common bonds. The term "community" encompasses worksites, schools, tribes, residential neighborhoods, business districts, recreational areas, and health and human service sites.


	PARENTS Parents can include: birth, foster, kinship, and adoptive parents. Please see service standards for more specific information about use of this term.


	OBJECTIVE A sub-goal stated in operational terms, i.e., a statement that makes clear what expected results are to be measured or assessed.


	PRACTICE Established actions or ways of proceeding in the regular performance of organizational duties. Policies and procedures often guide practice.