ABSTRACT
These three themes/strategies are being taken together, so interrelated are they. For what can be claimed at the end of an intervention depends substantially on the quality, i.e. the validity and reliability, of the original assessment, the goals which this leads to and how progress regarding their achievement is tracked. Working the other way, the quality and accuracy of assessments, which often in our field include measures of risk to self or to others (I am annually astonished to see that I need at least £6.5 million professional insurance cover, and that, not being a banker, I could possibly do this much damage in a given hour). Such factors can only be judged against indicators of progress or lack of it and against the outcomes which follow. Thus there is a question, important for the development of our skills, as to how confident we can be that any progress is due to the approach we have taken, and not to background, collateral factors.
