Dendy Platt examines the potential for the C-Change approach
Dendy Platt is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work, and Head of the Children and Families Research Centre, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol.
Social workers’ assessments of parental capacity to change are becoming increasingly important when working with children in need and children who may be at risk of maltreatment. Expectations from the courts regarding care proceedings in England have increased in the last couple of years, focusing particularly on better analysis in social work assessments, and better exploration of alternative courses of action for the child in question. Assessing the likelihood of a parent being able to make sufficient changes in their lives to ensure the child’s safety and wellbeing is a part of this analysis. And capacity to change is now included in the court report template from the Association of Directors of Children’s Services – requiring assessment of whether a parental capability gap can be bridged (http://adcs.org.uk/care/article/SWET).