Parenting and safeguarding assessments
A parenting or safeguarding assessment addresses a carer’s capacity to meet a child’s needs, and the risks to that child. It is prepared for family proceedings, which have their own rules on expert evidence.
Report scope
What this report is for
The assessment considers the child’s needs, the carer’s capacity to meet them, the factors limiting that capacity and whether they are amenable to change within the child’s timescales. Attachment, parental mental health, substance misuse and domestic abuse are addressed where they arise.
Expert evidence in family proceedings is governed by Part 25 of the Family Procedure Rules, not by CPR Part 35. Permission of the court is required before an expert is instructed, and the test is whether the evidence is necessary to resolve the proceedings justly.
Reports are prepared in public law proceedings under the Public Law Outline, in private law disputes about a child’s arrangements, and in pre-proceedings work where a local authority is assessing whether to issue.
The precise remit, documents and assumptions should be settled in the letter of instruction. An expert’s opinion is confined to their own discipline and the material provided.
Instruction requirements
A focused route to usable evidence
Permission comes before instruction in family proceedings. The letter of instruction is normally agreed between the parties and approved by the court, and it sets the questions the report must answer.
Court permission
Confirm the order permitting the expert and the questions allowed.
The child’s timescales
Assessment findings are read against the time the child has.
Full disclosure
Social work chronology, previous assessments and any findings of fact.
Named questions
The court-approved questions define the scope of the report.
Use the register to identify a suitable discipline, then agree the scope directly.
Find an expert for parenting and safeguarding assessmentsRelated routes
Where this report sits
risk assessments and capacity assessments may be directed in the same proceedings where an adult’s own risk or capacity is in issue.
Report enquiry