Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

58 Assessment of a child's needs for care and support

(1) Where it appears to a local authority that a child is likely to have needs for care and support after becoming 18, the authority must, if it is satisfied that it would be of significant benefit to the child to do so and if the consent condition is met, assess—
(a) whether the child has needs for care and support and, if so, what those needs are, and
(b) whether the child is likely to have needs for care and support after becoming 18 and, if so, what those needs are likely to be.

(2) An assessment under subsection (1) is referred to in this Part as a “child's needs assessment”.

(3) The consent condition is met if—
(a) the child has capacity or is competent to consent to a child's needs assessment being carried out and the child does so consent, or
(b) the child lacks capacity or is not competent so to consent but the authority is satisfied that carrying out a child's needs assessment would be in the child's best interests.

(4) Where a child refuses a child's needs assessment and the consent condition is accordingly not met, the local authority must nonetheless carry out the assessment if the child is experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect.

(5) Where a local authority, having received a request to carry out a child's assessment from the child concerned or a parent or carer of the child, decides not to comply with the request, it must give the person who made the request—
(a) written reasons for its decision, and
(b) information and advice about what can be done to prevent or delay the development by the child of needs for care and support in the future.

(6) “Parent”, in relation to a child, includes—
(a) a parent of the child who does not have parental responsibility for the child, and
(b) a person who is not a parent of the child but who has parental responsibility for the child.

(7) “Carer”, in relation to a child, means a person, other than a parent, who is providing care for the child, whether or not under or by virtue of a contract or as voluntary work.

(8) The reference to providing care includes a reference to providing practical or emotional support.

59 Child's needs assessment: requirements etc.

(1) A child's needs assessment must include an assessment of—
(a) the impact on the matters specified in section 1(2) of what the child's needs for care and support are likely to be after the child becomes 18,
(b) the outcomes that the child wishes to achieve in day-to-day life, and
(c) whether, and if so to what extent, the provision of care and support could contribute to the achievement of those outcomes.

(2) A local authority, in carrying out a child's needs assessment, must involve—
(a) the child,
(b) the child's parents and any carer that the child has, and
(c) any person whom the child or a parent or carer of the child requests the local authority to involve.

(3) When carrying out a child's needs assessment, a local authority must also consider whether, and if so to what extent, matters other than the provision of care and support could contribute to the achievement of the outcomes that the child wishes to achieve in day-to-day life.

(4) Having carried out a child's needs assessment, a local authority must give the child—
(a) an indication as to whether any of the needs for care and support which it thinks the child is likely to have after becoming 18 are likely to meet the eligibility criteria (and, if so, which ones are likely to do so), and
(b) advice and information about—
(i) what can be done to meet or reduce the needs which it thinks the child is likely to have after becoming 18;
(ii) what can be done to prevent or delay the development by the child of needs for care and support in the future.

(5) But in a case where the child is not competent or lacks capacity to understand the things which the local authority is required to give under subsection (4), that subsection is to have effect as if for “must give the child” there were substituted “ must give the child's parents ”.

(6) Where a person to whom a child's needs assessment relates becomes 18, the local authority must decide whether to treat the assessment as a needs assessment; and if the authority decides to do so, this Part applies to the child's needs assessment as if it were a needs assessment that had been carried out after the person had become 18.

(7) In considering what to decide under subsection (6), a local authority must have regard to—
(a) when the child's needs assessment was carried out, and
(b) whether it appears to the authority that the circumstances of the person to whom the child's needs assessment relates have changed in a way that might affect the assessment.

(8) “Carer” has the same meaning as in section 58.