Rights-focused practice requires an ability to synthesise different types of knowledge from varied sources. In particular, as noted in Chapter 5, three types of knowledge are crucial:

• 1. Subjective perspectives: the views of those we work with, including children, parents, carers and professionals.

• 2. Objective evidence: our professional view, including more objective and normative evidence and more factual information from various sources.

• 3. Society's view: of what is acceptable and can be provided as expressed in law, policy, procedures and resourcing.

Assessment in social work is therefore a complicated undertaking. It involves gathering, combining and seeking to understand different types of evidence in order to ensure the rights of all those involved are understood and worked with. This chapter argues that many approaches to assessment are too simplistic to support this type of complexity. How we might helpfully think about assessment, particularly when working with a rights-focused approach, is then the focus of the chapter. The aim is to provide a theory of and for assessment, with the next chapter outlining a potential practice that flows from this orientation.

What is assessment?

Assessment requires us not just to obtain and combine different types of knowledge and perspectives, but also to use our skills, values, knowledge and theories to analyse and synthesise information. There is a sense in which all of social work is brought together in the practice of assessment. Certainly, assessment is a core part of social work. It is something social workers do almost every day, and some of their assessments can have enormous consequences for people. There are few more far-reaching interventions than, for instance, recommending that a person be given compulsory psychiatric treatment or removing a child. Social workers do not make such immense decisions alone, but their assessments are a key part of the process. Indeed, very often the process does not start if the social worker does not recommend it. Many assessments are less obviously important but can have substantial implications. Whether it be deciding whether a family get financial help, whether adults can become foster carers, or whether a person with a disability should get an enhanced package of care, the assessments and decisions that social workers make are hugely important.