This definitive textbook provides accessible information on best practice for assessing the needs and strengths of vulnerable children and their families. It explores the challenges that practitioners face routinely - with suggestions as to how to address them - as well as the established areas for assessment, of children's developmental needs, parenting ability and motivation, and socio-economic factors.
This new edition has been extended substantially to include recent practice, policy and theoretical developments, such as understanding the lived experience of children, young people, and family members. It also considers children's neurological development, assessing parental capacity to change, early help assessments, emerging areas of practice such as child sexual exploitation, and working with asylum-seeking and trafficked children.
Crucially, this updated edition takes a broader approach in offering relevant information to a range of professionals working with vulnerable children. The importance of inter-professional working is emphasised throughout.
David Shemmings is Professor of Social Work in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent. He undertook his PhD in attachment theory, and has spent most of his working life in the field of child protection. David was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June 2014 for 'Services to Child Protection'.
Yvonne Shemmings is a Continuing Professional Development Specialist and has trained professionals in over 30 child protection organizations. She is a qualified social worker and a senior manager, and her work includes the use of attachment theory in practice. Both David and Yvonne have published widely in the fields of child and adult attachment and child protection.
Arnon Bentovim is a Director of Child and Family Training, and a Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was formerly a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and the Tavistock Clinic. He was also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Child Health, University College London.
Audrey Tait is a Social Worker with the Children and Families Practice Team, City of Edinburgh Council. Originally trained as a nursery nurse, she has 20 years' experience working with children in social work settings and for the past 4 years she has been delivering a training course, Communicating with Children, for the City of Edinburgh Council's Children and Families Department.
Helen Wosu is an independent social worker and holds an MSc in Advanced Social Work Practice from the University of Edinburgh. She has previously worked as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Dundee, a senior social worker for a practice team and as an Employee Development Officer in Child Protection for the City of Edinburgh Council. She currently undertakes kinship care and adoption assessments as well as child development and child protection training.
