why is this subject important?

All too often social care assessments lack structure and are unclear, unfocused and repetitive. This means the message and impact are weakened or lost. When writing assessments and support plans we need to do so in a clear, concise, relevant and meaningful way.  And that means taking the reader (whoever that may be) with us every step of the way. We simply need to convince them that we know what we are talking about and are worth listening to.

Assessments will be read, understood and followed if they are easy to read, easy to understand and easy to follow.  Research, inspections and inquiries have all raised concerns that social care assessments often lacks analysis and the child or service user’s voice. All too frequently, writing is mainly narrative and descriptive. There is a lot of information and a lot of facts. But we need to make sense of those facts and that information. What do they tell us? Why do they tell us that? What should we do as a consequence of that? Use the evidence to form your thinking.

We’ll make analysis easy!   Honest.

how will this course help me?

You will understand how analytical writing requires you to assess the weight that should be given to information gathered. To do this we will show you how to draw on your knowledge from research, experience and practice combined with an understanding of the child or service user’s needs within their family or the context in which the child or service user lives. This course aims to make you confident in understanding what is relevant and meaningful and then to show you how to write that down effectively.

what will I learn?   You will learn how to:

• Understand the process of analysis;
• Be clear what is fact and what is judgement;
• Give weight to relevance of information;
• Make use of chronologies;
• Work out what information might be telling you; and
• Make sense of the information to form a clear plan of action.

“If the analysis is not available in the record the case worker is apt to wander aimlessly around in the treatment of the case or to confine treatment exclusively to the pressing needs of the moment. Consistent long-run planning and execution are very difficult, especially in complicated cases, unless the worker takes time to sit down and think through the situation, to record the results of this process and to refer back to her plan of procedure and revise it from time to time.”
- Margaret Bristol - Handbook on Social Case Recording, 1936