Well done, you made the correct decision.
Here are some points that you need to consider. You should have included all of these in your reflective activity.
- This is the right thing to do. It is essential to now complete the full risk assessment. You need to discuss it with your manager and accurately tell them what has happened and why you made your decisions.
- When you were first assigned this case the right thing to do would have been to prioritise your workload as agreed with your manager to allow you to do a full risk assessment.
- Preparing assessments and reports are crucial social work tasks in the criminal justice system. They are central to defensible decision making and are the foundation on which appropriate interventions are built.
- Reports should be completed in line with the National Outcomes and Standards for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System. The standards are designed to support you to improve your performance and results.
- The standards place a high importance on good quality reports. Completing an effective report includes using an agreed risk assessment tool. Report writing and risk assessment are key professional skills.
- While you have worked with John before, it is still necessary to do a full risk assessment. The standards emphasise that assessment should be an inclusive and participative process with the worker and individual working together. You should make sure John understands the purpose of the report and can see its content.
- Doing a full assessment using a participative approach is essential to developing an understanding of John’s current circumstances and identifying risks and needs, including health and substance use. A full assessment will take into consideration factors like the impact of any previous sentences. It should consider near future contexts and the situations in which re-offending may occur.
- Effective risk assessments and their implementation are essential to ensuring good outcomes in the reduction of re-offending and promotion of community safety and public protection.
- In future you should act sooner and not leave risk assessments incomplete. You are now doing the right thing but your mistakes could have called into question your suitability to be a criminal justice social work professional and an investigation by your employer could have resulted in disciplinary action.
- You must act in a way that demonstrates you are trustworthy and dependable. You should make improvements to your practice to make sure you are worthy of the trust of colleagues, people using services and the wider community.
When you were assigned John’s court report the right thing to do would have been to discuss the case with your manager, prioritise your workload as agreed with your manager and make sure the report was completed in line with the National Outcomes and Standards for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System. You can find out why this was the right thing to do here.
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