Working with Family Resources

Abstract

The terms ‘vetting’ and ‘selection’ are still commonly used when social workers are talking about pre-placement work with prospective foster or adoptive parents: ‘assessment’ is little better when it is employed to mean the same thing. I have argued that an assessment approach is unacceptable because there are no consistently established criteria against which to measure acceptability, perceived implications of professional status and power inhibit learning and self-assessment in applicants, and the relationship between applicants and social worker is unlikely to be based on trust, honesty and open communication. If this is so, pre-placement work will be characterised by professional distance, doubt, and anxiety, and while social workers end up with little real understanding of applicants’ willingness and ability to undertake particular tasks, applicants may feel unable to express their worries or to ask for help at a later stage. What I intend to explore then, is a preparation model, and although the term ‘assessment’ will be used, it will become clear that such a usage in this context must be sharply distinguished from its relation to vetting and selection. For clarification, the table on pp. 85–6 summarises major elements of assessment and preparation models.

‘If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a seabird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?’ the king demanded. ‘The general or myself?’ ‘You,’ said the prince firmly. ‘Exactly. One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform,’ the king went on.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince