Risk Taking and Assessments

Much of our work with children and young people concerns the need to reduce or eliminate risk.

We care for children/young people by understanding the risks they may encounter, and helping them to develop a healthy attitude to risks.

Every child/young person's Placement Plan will include a detailed risk assessment, which considers the risks to which that particular child is vulnerable and how best to keep the child safe and help them to manage risk.

However, the key principle is that we will find a balance between protecting children and allowing them to learn and develop by taking manageable and managed risks.

Children who come to us have often had difficulties developing a healthy attitude towards risk. Having been exposed to dangerous situations and not protected from them, they may be more attracted to the familiar feelings associated with taking risks than others.

On the other hand they may have been frightened or traumatised so that they remain fearful and unable to take the risks needed to develop. Most of the children will not have developed the sense of security needed to judge risks accurately and moderate their behaviour accordingly.

Taking risks related to sex, alcohol, drugs, driving and physical risk-taking are all common in the children/young people we care for. Alongside this, an inability to risk doing the unfamiliar (for example: writing, being able to say 'no', speaking out) may all limit children's development and they need to be encouraged to 'risk it' in a way which is sensitive to what this may have meant earlier in their lives (for instance children may have been punished just for existing).

For more detailed guidance, see Appendix 1: Risk Taking Guidance.

It is the responsibility of all managers to ensure that appropriate written risk assessments are undertaken. A risk assessment does not need to be undertaken by a manager. It is their responsibility to ensure that a person who has the knowledge and understanding of the issues and who is familiar with the risk assessment procedure completes a risk assessment.

A risk assessment is a careful examination of what, in an establishment's activities, premises and day to day work could cause harm to children/young people or lead them into, or fail to provide reasonable protection for them from, unacceptably risky behaviour. Its purpose is to identify the precautions needed and whether more should be done to prevent harm or risk of harm. Its objective is to minimise risk or avert risks and to protect children. It is a matter of applying systematic common sense to the protection of children from risks that could have been minimised or averted.

Making a risk assessment for each child is good practice as it supports the child and staff in promoting pro-active planning to aid the task of establishing a safe and settled placement.

Overview of the types of occasions when a risk assessment needs to be completed:

• When deciding upon a placement;
• Prior to admission in relation to the needs of the child and the existing group;
• When planning activities;
• When planning and purchasing new facilities that will be used by children;
• When new work practices are introduced;
• When a child develops a special need or where there is a significant change to their existing needs;
• When a child / young person presents a new behavioural risk.

The children and young people placed within a Childhood First home, will occasionally present serious concerns that may have an impact on the stability of their placement. In this event Childhood First have developed a placement risk assessment process which provides a clear framework to rate presenting difficulties and guidelines for staff on how to proceed in assessing how to respond to these risks.

There should be a system for regularly reviewing the risk assessments. No risk assessment should be written without a review date. It may be necessary to review risk assessments on a daily basis, however each risk assessment must be reviewed by an experienced member of staff on a regular basis. The Director / Registered Manager must be alerted to any emerging risk to ensure that any additional support, such as working with partners to minimise risk can be actioned.

A risk assessment should assess risks to the children's health and/or safety, including the risks from activities as well as those posed by the child/young person's emotional / behavioural vulnerabilities.

These risks include:

• Physical, sexual or emotional abuse;
• Neglect;
• Damage to normal development;
• Accidental injury;
• Features of premises or activities which invite illicit and risky activities;
• Bullying (it is as important to include risks of abuse and bullying, from both adults and other children both within and outside the home, as it is to cover risk of injury);
• Becoming lost or being taken by someone;
• Becoming involved in prostitution or pornography;
• Becoming involved in CSE or CCE;
• Becoming involved in substance abuse;
• Becoming significantly distressed or upset;
• Failure to safeguard and promote the individual's welfare.

A "significant" risk is one that a reasonable person would regard as significant rather than negligible, taking into account the ages, mix and characteristics of the children involved. The Director/Registered Manager must be notified of any significant risks.

Assessing risks needs a steady and step-by-step approach. When a risk assessment is completed it needs to be communicated to those people whom it affects - the children and the staff. This needs to be communicated at all levels and the home needs to develop a system for communicating when risks have been identified such as communicating through “handover/feedback/staff meetings” and children/young people's community meetings, individual key worker discussions.

Also see (these chapters contain procedures on Risk Assessments):

Transporting Children Procedures

As children/young people develop, they will naturally and rightly take greater responsibility for their own activities and free time. Many children will participate in risky activities which are not provided, approved or arranged by the home.

However, there remains a statutory duty to safeguard and promote welfare, reasonably taking into account the age, understanding and relevant competence of the children concerned.

There are 3 main considerations when assessing risk from specific activities being provided for children.

The staff role in children's and young people's risk taking

It is the role of all staff to be aware of the purpose that risk taking needs to play in each child's development. This will expose the differences in attitude to risk within the staff team. These attitudes need to be discussed openly in order for the staff team to properly think about what each child needs. This is likely to be an area where differences occur between staff. This is a healthy process and just as children in families often witness adults discussing how much risk they should be exposed to, it is also important for children in care to understand that the staff care enough about them to have strong feelings on these matters.

Children need to be provided with plenty of opportunities to take 'controlled' risks, which have been subject to a Risk Assessment. The more this happens the less they are likely to feel the need to look elsewhere to take them. While letting children take too big a risk is a mistake, stopping them from taking any at all is also one. The children cared for by Childhood First have often not had the developmental opportunities ordinarily experienced by trying things they are just learning to manage. The staff role is to provide these opportunities whilst understanding that by the nature of the endeavour children will 'fall over' or 'fail' many times before learning to manage the dangers without needing an adult to pick them up. So opportunities to go out unsupervised, travel by bus, manage money, manage an aerosol etc, will need to be the subject of repeated experience.

Staff should:

• Understand each child's relationship to risk according to their history, experience, and developmental stage;
• Use this understanding to inform and formulate Placement Plans and Individual Risk Assessments;
• Form strong relationships with children/young people and supervise them well so that risk taking behaviour is more likely to happen in front of them rather than through unsafe or delinquent behaviour;
• Discuss safety and risk taking in children's meetings;
• Supervise children and young people properly and set clear and appropriate boundaries;
• Use the staff forums provided to talk together about risk-taking;
• Instigate activities to provide children and young people with controlled risk taking opportunities;
• Ensure they know the areas where their role is to eliminate and reduce risk (car, road and bike safety, fires, health and infection control, child protection, visitor management etc);
• Ensure rules about safety and policies are adhered to in all circumstances – especially those where children and young people may be at particularly acute risk – for example: missing from care, restraint, child protection, substance misuse, Child Sexual Exploitation and Radicalisation, etc;
• Ensure risk assessments are made, used and updated.

Take collective responsibility for identifying and managing risky situations – this should not just be left to managers.

Click here to view 'Risk Management of Placement Stability – Traffic Light System'.