Session One: Wednesday, 23 August, 2023. 9:30am – 12:45pm       Session Two: Thursday, 24 August, 2023. 9:30am – 12:45pm

Is risk assessment still relevant in child protection when you work from a positive, optimistic and strengths framework with families?  Of course!  Assessing risk remains at the core of protecting children and young people. Yet what some find tricky is how to integrate risk assessment processes with a strengths-oriented practice approach.  This workshop ‘delves deeper’ into this question, reviewing contemporary understandings of the concepts and skills critical to risk assessment and exploring how to successfully enable these in practice while engaging with families around the safety of their children.  The complexities of this work are enormous, as is the responsibility to ‘get it right’.  Informed by contemporary research and thinking, this workshop provides the opportunity to explore your understanding and approach to risk assessment and where it fits with frameworks for inclusive engagement and work with families.

Who should attend?

Frontline child safety workers, team leaders and managers, in statutory and community services. Child Safety, Family and Child Connect, Intensive Family Support services and any personnel across government and community sectors who have responsibility for risk assessment in the context of working to support families.