ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a system for assessing the emotional needs of young people which would promote sound therapeutic practice. Social workers whose job it is to try to find permanent homes for challenging young people will be helped enormously if they have access to more accurate assessments. The Caldecott College Assessment Programme starts where Looking After Children finishes and focuses on the young person’s emotional world, that part of the personality which, through chronic suffering, triggers anti-social behaviour and problems of care and management. Child protection is a skilled discipline which requires sophisticated tools for both assessment and intervention. The young person needs one grown-up to stay with the rage and explosions, accept them and to be able to cope with the despair and emptiness that follows the breakdown. Growing dependency and communicaton will help both grown-up and young person to face the pain inside.
