ABSTRACT
In order to address these issues we must first pose the question: what is the purpose of assessment? The aim of assessment is to guide action. All professionals working with children and families may, at times, need to take action to protect a child, if only to pass their concerns on to another worker. Information received from others or direct observations made during ongoing contact must be weighed up and organised in order to suggest the most appropriate response. This assessment process includes identifying the problems and their severity and gathering other relevant information to help form an opinion about the degree of risk to the child. Assessment, therefore, is an ongoing process and at each step new information needs to be evaluated and given meaning. In this way, a picture emerges of the possible origins of the problems and how they might be resolved or contained. Assessment is thus both an activity in itself and a process of understanding. Without it, workers are left to react to events and intervene in an unplanned way.
