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Overview of processes

Looking After Children - processes

  1. Looking After Children (LAC) is a best practice framework for supporting outcomes-focused collaborative care for children and young people who are placed away from their families, care as a result of a Child Protection intervention. LAC was originally developed in the United Kingdom and has subsequently been implemented in many other jurisdictions internationally and interstate.
  2. In Victoria, LAC provides the practice framework for considering how each child's needs will be met, while that child is in out of home care.
  3. When a child is placed in out of home care there are a group of people who share the responsibilities for doing the things that parents generally do: the placement agency caseworker, the carers (foster carers or residential workers), the Child Protection worker, and sometimes some others, as well as the child's parents and other adult family members. In out of home care, this group of people are referred to as the child's care team. The LAC framework, processes and tools assist the care teams to more effectively work together to respond to the child's safety, stability and developmental needs while that child is in out of home care.
  4. The LAC framework considers the child's needs and outcomes in seven life areas which cover the things that parents usually also pay attention to, as well as being the critical areas identified from outcomes research, namely the child's:
    • Health
    • Emotional and behavioural development
    • Education
    • Family and social relationships
    • Identity
    • Social presentation
    • Self-care skills.
  5. LAC includes a set of practice tools that prompt good practice and which also comprise the main client records kept by the community service organisation (CSO) providing the out of home care placement (also referred to as the placement agency). The tools all utilise the seven life areas listed above.
  6. The four key LAC tools that support care teams are:
    • the Essential Information Record
    • the Care and Placement Plan (which is an essential component of the overall statutory Best Interests Case Plan)
    • the Assessment and Action Record which has six different age related formats:<12months, 1-2 years, 3-4 years. 5-9 years, 10-14 years and 15+
    • the Review of the Care and Placement Plan.
  7. All the LAC tools are copyright and licence protected. The Victorian versions of the Essential Information Record, The Care and Placement Plan and the Review of the Care and Placement Plan are part of the electronic client information system ( known as CRIS - Client Relationships Information System  and CRISSP - Client Relationships Information System for Service providers) used by CSOs who are funded to provide out of home care in Victoria.
  8. The current version of the Assessment and Action Records used in Victoria is a paper based version which can only be printed out by licensed end users from the password protected website managed by Barnardos NSW www.lacproject.org. A revised set of Word based Assessment and Action Records is currently being developed for Victoria and will be available for pilot use by the end of 2009, prior to their planned subsequent incorporation within CRIS and CRISSP.
  9. The minimum requirements for completing LAC records and processes for a CSO to comply with registration standards are:
    • compilation of an Essential Information Record
    • completion of a Care and Placement Plan within the first two weeks of a child coming into care
    • completion of a Review of the Care and Placement Plan at least every six months
    • completion of an Assessment and Action Record for every child in care for six months and thereafter annually (bi-annually for children under school age)
    • documentation within the relevant LAC records of the necessary information, assessments and strategies that indicate that the care team is addressing the child's safety, stability and developmental needs whilst in care.
  10. The recommended best practice processes for using these tools are:
    • a continuous process of recording and updating of the factual information about the child from the start of the placement using the Essential Information Record - building on the information already provided in the Placement Referral Record and elsewhere in CRIS/SP to ensure key information each care team member knows about the child is kept in one place
    • using the Care and Placement Plan to document what the care team members have agreed to do to meet the child's needs in care across each of the seven life areas commencing with the first plan completed in the first two weeks
    • completing an Assessment and Action Record as soon as practicable after a child comes into care (after the initial Care and Placement Plan has been completed) to enable the care team to get to know the child in their care and thereafter annually (bi-annually for children under school age) to track the child's developmental progress. The Assessment and Action Record should not be completed in one sitting as a form filling exercise but should be based on a series of conversations with the child and various care team members over a period of at least 6 weeks
    • undertaking a Review of the Care and Placement Plan whenever the child's circumstances change, after the completion of each Assessment and Action Record and at least six monthly.

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