Tool Kit Components
1. Referral Record
2. Assessment and Planning Agreements
3. Child and Family Assessments Age Related
4. A Series of Age Related “Add-Its”
5. Action Plan
6. Review Record
7. Record of Contact
8. New Information Record/Report to Child Protection Authority
9. Closure Record
10. SCARF Flow Chart
11. Guide to Implementing SCARF
Click here to view a complete list of records
To ensure that the Supporting Children and Responding to Families Tools are produced in a standard format within offices, across agencies and throughout Australia, all SCARF tools must be printed and collated in a consistent manner.
Consistency in production of printed SCARF Materials is part of the UK Department of Education and Skills licence requirements and must be adhered to by all agencies using the SCARF Materials under End User Agreement with SCARF Australia. The Guide to producing SCARF tools provides a colour coded reference point for each SCARF form.
Click here to download a copy of the 'Producing and Printing SCARF Tools' document (pdf)
1. Referral Record
- Family members’ identification, relationship and contact details.
- Reasons for the referral referring persons contact information
- Outcome / Action to be taken with regards the referral
- Record is commenced the day of the referral and completed within the Agency’s standard/ intake policy timeframe
View sample Referral Record
2. Assessment Agreements & Planning Agreements made with the family
- The Assessment Agreement needs to be signed by the family member/s participating and the worker signs they have fully explained it and discussed the expectations the client family has of the service. The expected timeframe is discussed and agreed to.
- The Planning Agreement needs to be signed when the Assessment is complete. It states what are considered the priority issues and the overall plan the service and client are agreeing to. The client family is invited to write comments.
View sample Assessment Agreement
View sample Planning Agreement
3. Child and Family Assessments Age Related
- The assessment is divided into 3 domains which may be completed in whatever order best suits the child and family’s circumstances.
- Child Development completed for each child associated with the referral
View sample Domain A Assessment - Parenting Capacity completed for each child associated with the referral.
View sample Domain B Assessment - Family in their Community completed from everyone in the family’s perspective
View sample Domain C Assessment
Click here to view the SCARF Assessment Model
- Child Development completed for each child associated with the referral
- Each domain is divided into dimensions and the worker appraises the strengths and needs of the family in each dimension. Information in the form of guidance notes based on current research evidence is provided for each dimension.
- All dimensions include 4 questions relating to the family’s strengths, needs, whether the service will assist and whether specialist service will be recommended.
- The assessment ends with a short summary and an overall plan
- The family is invited to sign that they have seen the final written assessment, the summary and the overall plan. They are invited to write their own comments. The Assessment Record should be completed within 25 working days however the period can be extended in some circumstances. The assessment period should be estimated before commencing.
View sample Child and Family Assessments Age Related
4. A Series of Age Related “Add-Its”
- Add-Its examine each dimension of the 3 domains in more detail.
- Each Add-it contains 10-15 additional questions to help determine the depth of need. They are available for different age groupings ie. 0-12 months, 1-2 years, 3-4 years, 5-9 years,10-15 years, 16 plus. Any number of Add-Its may be used for each child
- Add-Its contain guidance notes alongside the questions just as the Basic Assessment does. Having the guidance notes on view has the advantage of the assessment being transparent to the client. Workers can use the guidance notes to help explain to clients why they have formulated their opinion about the child’s strengths and needs.
View sample Age Related “Add-Its” for 0-12 months
View sample Age Related "Add-Its" for 11-15 years
5. Action Plan
- Action Plans may be for a particular child in the family or the family as a whole and are linked to the overall plan to ensure work with the family remains child focused.
- Action Plans can be used as soon as a need has been determined ie they don’t rely on the assessment being finished.
- Clients are invited to help determine the plans, sign and comment on the plans
- As each Action Plan is completed the worker and family evaluate the outcome and determine the consequence. Action Plans are then more formally reviewed at family review meetings which examine the bigger picture ie the overplan. (see next section Review Record).
View sample Action Plan
6. Review Record
- All work with families is regularly reviewed and the review date is set when the first overall plan is made. At each review the next review date should be determined.
- The review process involves collecting information and opinions about the progress of the family, sharing this information and opinions and making decisions about future plans and actions. Rules around transparency, inclusiveness and inter agency participation must be carefully considered as the review is planned.
- The Review Record has 2 Parts. Part 1 is an evaluation of the Action Plans carried out between reviews. Part 2 records discussion notes taken at the review meeting and the final decisions.
- Clients, workers and supervisors sign the record.
View sample Review Record
7. Record of Contact
- The Record of Contact is a quick method of recording the contact the worker/s have with the family members. It can be used in conjunction with the New Information Record (described next) instead of progress notes. The record assists in measuring and evaluating the amount of support a family has actually received.
View sample Record of Contact
8. New Information Record/Report to Child Protection Authority
- Allows you to records important new information about a child or family’s needs collected after the assessment has been completed. The record requires the worker to make judgements about what to do about the new information. If used in conjunction with the Record of Contact, progress notes are not necessary.
View sample New Information Record
9. Closure Record
- A standard closure form is used with a check list of things that should be done and recorded before the agency ends its relationship with the child/ren and family.
View sample Closure Record
10. SCARF Flow Chart
- The SCARF Flowchart is an easy to follow pictorial guide to using the SCARF tools and how they relate to each other
View Flowchart
11. Guide to Implementing SCARF
- The impact of implementing SCARF will depend on the agency’s practices and policies prior to using SCARF. The context in which an agency operates will also affect SCARF implementation. A small agency in a rural setting for example will have different challenges to a state-wide government agency. It is useful to develop an implementation management plan to suit your particular service or agency.
This implementation guide has been developed from the actual experience SCARF Australia has had in implementing SCARF in a range of family support services since 2001. Other services’ have reported their own experiences to SCARF Australia, and this practice wisdom has been incorporated into the material presented.
View Guide