Indicators of other forms of parenting where these are assessed as harmful to the child
Resources for assessing other forms of harmful parenting
Our Family Court Advisers need to consider all the factors which play a part in harmful parenting, such as mental health and substance abuse. This ensures a focus on the wider harm that may occur, and not only of that raised specifically in the application to court.
The practice aids below are derived from a range of sources and some are not Cafcass original documents. Each practice aid has been identified for use by Cafcass staff. Information on the source of each document is referenced in the further information section below.
Tools and guidance
Read the other forms of harmful parenting guide
| Resource | Guidance on use | Source |
|---|---|---|
| SCODA – risk assessment with parental drug misuse | Private law: To be used in an interview to establish an evidence base for analysis. | SCODA |
| Tool for drug abuse | Private law: To be used in an interview to establish an evidence base for analysis. | Cafcass – adapted from Fowler, 2003 |
| Alcohol use tool | Private law: To be used in an interview to establish an evidence base for analysis. | Adapted from Department of Health (DoH 2000) |
| Tool for parenting knowledge and style | Private law: To be used to explore parents’ understanding of their child’s needs according to age and stage of development. | Cafcass – adapted from Fowler, 2003 |
| Child exploitation screening tool | Private/public law: This tool can be applied to all children (male and female) under the age of 18 and its purpose is to enable practitioners to assess a child’s level of risk of CSE and/or CCE in a concise and consistent manner. | Cafcass |
| Adult wellbeing scale | Private law: To be used in an interview to establish an evidence base for analysis. | DoH 2000 |
| Parenting daily hassles scale | Private/public law: An assessment tool which can be used with the parents/carers to consider their view of the children’s needs and how they are coping with these needs. | DoH 2000 |
| Mental health thinking tool | Private/public law: This is a tool to help organise FCAs thinking and critically review evidence in cases where parents have mental health difficulties. It is not designed to be a prescriptive or definitive measure of risk and should be used in the context of the overall structured professional judgement, in conjunction with the broader evidence in the case. | Dr Sheena Webb, Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust for Cafcass, 2017 |
| Child impact timeline tool | The impact timeline works like a chronology, highlighting significant events, but with a focus on the impact of those events on the child/ren. The tool supports practitioners in identifying trends and patterns and supports them to understand the impact on children and in their analysis to the court | Cafcass |