– The purpose of this paper is to describe the development process of building an assessment model to assess the emotional and behavioural needs of “looked after children”.
– The paper is a technical paper developing and evaluating a process for comprehensively assessing children's needs using a combination of three existing tools.
– The paper identifies a model to assess “looked after” children and highlights some of the early benefits and challenges which have been encountered using this model.
– This paper suggests a model and timeframe to ensure that detailed assessments of the mental health of “looked after” children are effectively carried out.
– There is a potential for an improvement in assessment of looked after children that will lead to the identification of appropriate interventions and services.
– The paper is new in identifying a combination of assessment measures and a timeline to complete these.
