Developmental Assessment

INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

9 OCTOBER 2000
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In South Africa the first task when engaging with young people at risk is to undertake a developmental assessment for which workers receive special training. Below are extracts from the first two pages of the basic training course ...

Aspects of Developmental Assessment

Principles of the developmental approach

Each human being has immense potential to be whole and to be effective within their daily living experiences within a variety of contexts. We need to trust that with our facilitation of resources he/she will develop towards wholeness and well-being. [Potentially the seed has a mighty tree within it.]
Development cannot be forced, only supported and nurtured.
Each human being has strengths
Each person must be understood and responded to as a whole at any particular moment and over time.
Labelling and categorising people is not helpful to development and is to be avoided
There are no experts, only learners on a journey of development.
Development is life-long. All human beings have the capacity to grow and change throughout their life.
Mistakes are not failures; they are opportunities for learning and growth.
Every crisis is opportunity for learning, change and growth.
The past can inform the here-and-now, but there is no emphasis on causes. The present and future are more important than the past. The emphasis is on the optimum use of each moment in order to take the next step.
When individuals experience themselves differently they are enabled to behave differently. Thus the developmental approach is primarily about enabling people to experience themselves as whole and competent at any given time as well as over time.

Development in the moment

Development in the moment is about how the individual can be most effective at a particular time and in a particular situation. That is, can the person make the most effective decisions possible for self and for others which will enable him/her to move forward towards a greater sense of well-being and wholeness? If we are to facilitate development in the moment we need to ask: What does this person or family need to know now or be able to do now in order to be effective — in order to take the next steps.

The focus is on the next steps — not on the next 10 years! When we are wanting to understand how we can be helpful in facilitating development we ask: "What does this person need to know or be able to do now or in the next little while in order to keep growing?"

This links to the individual development plan (IDP) for each young person.
• The lDP may be a written programme for the next three months (as might be the case for a child and family linked to an agency or residential care centre for a period of time); or
• The IDP may be an informal understanding between the child and worker that in the next two hours, this and this need to happen (as might be the case in a very short stay as at a reception/referral centre.
For those who work in the developmental context (life-space) of the young person and family (the child and youth care worker, the youth worker or the foster parent) the written IDP forms the guideline (the big picture) for each informal and quite often spontaneous mini-plan of "next steps" which is implemented in the moment.

Influencing development

Development cannot be forced, and it cannot be controlled except from within. Imagine a gardener standing over a seed each day and saying "if you don’t grow this much and in this direction within the next week, you will be punished!" If a gardener wanted a seed to develop in a particular way, he or she would provide the water and soil and possibly a guiding rod from which the plant could receive support. Pulling, pushing, shouting or taking away the water or sunlight as punishment would not have the desired effect.

Human beings respond in the same way and we defeat ourselves and each other when we attempt to force growth and/or change.

We can neither change human beings nor control their development. Sometimes we think we can, but we fool ourselves. What we can do, however, is influence them. That is partly why we assess young people at risk — to ensure that we can effectively influence them within the period of time given to us, whether it be five minutes or five years.

Influence in the moment and over time is the outcome of the following:

How effectively we model what we would like to see from the young person and/or family. This particularly relates to values and principles, such as respect. [Note that in order to be an effective model we ourselves can and should be developing and changing.]
What resources we make available, for example, information, knowledge, skill.
How we manage the environment to make it most conducive to growth — at that moment and over time, for that particular individual.

Influence is reduced when one or more of these elements is lacking. Influence is maximised when we can effectively combine all three elements. The goal of such influence is to enable the young person/family to feel that they can make effective decisions in the moment and in the medium and long term. The goal of influence is linked to maximising inner discipline and responsible decision-making which leads to responsible actions.

Source: The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk, South Africa

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