5.5.1 Chronologies

RELATED CHAPTERS

1. When is a Chronology Required?

A chronology should be compiled when an initial or core assessment is undertaken. The chronology should be updated when the case is reviewed and prior to important meetings. Up to date chronologies must be available for review by managers, child protection advisors and solicitors prior to child protection conferences, network, professional, and legal planning meetings, and when consideration is given to voluntary care under section 20. Regular audits of chronologies are undertaken of numbers and quality.

1.1 Specialist cases/teams

For Looked After Children who are unaccompanied minors, producing a historical chronology may be difficult since it may be difficult to corroborate information. However a chronology giving an overview of their experiences prior to coming to this country and key events in their life whilst being Looked After must be attempted.

2. What to Include in a Chronology

As stated above the purpose of a chronology is to provide workers, managers and in some cases the Courts with a chronological list of significant events in a child’s or their family’s life. This enables the reader to quickly gain a picture of formative events and patterns of behaviour helping to improve decision-making.

A chronology is not expected to be a repetition of the detailed records contained in case recordings, but brief bullet points indicating incidents, events or issues within a family that significantly affect a child’s life. Family strengths and protective factors should be included to ensure a full and balanced impression is obtained. It therefore requires familiarity with the case information, and analysis to identify the critical moments in a child/family’s life experience.

When completing a chronology all case records should be read. If important data is missing from the file it may be possible to obtain this from the family or professionals who are/have been involved. If it is not possible to read the entire case file in the timescale required then meetings records, assessments and reviews should be read.

Chronology entries should be factual and not include opinion or hypothesis. The prompts below indicate the types of information that should feature in a chronology:

Family History - including marriages, births, deaths, changes in the make-up of the household, and emigration details as appropriate
Child's changes of address/school
Child Protection Case Conferences, Child Protection Registration(s)
Key Network/Planning/Professionals Meetings and Assessments (For important meetings a bullet point list of plans made should be included and it should be clear whether the plans were implemented)
Relevant Medical Examinations
Critical Incidents, including Police Notifications (Form 78s) and section 47 Child Protection investigations, giving rise to concern about the well-being of a child
Take up/non take up of services
Case open/closed and whether allocated, held on duty or referred to other agencies - including summarised reason(s) for decision(s)
Accommodations (including requests for and consideration of accommodation)
Any behaviour of the child(ren) that is of concern
Concerning information from agencies/individuals e.g. allegations (substantiated or otherwise)
Recorded positive events or strengths
History of Court Applications, Hearings and Orders

3. Chronologies for a Different Purpose

Chronologies may be compiled to gain a sense of a family’s history and past social services involvement but may also be undertaken for very specific purposes. For example, information may be needed about a Looked After child’s past behaviour, experiences of being parented and reasons for placement changes to aid a decision about what type of placement may best meet their needs. Such a chronology may be more detailed than one prepared for a child protection conference or court proceedings. It is necessary for practitioners to use their professional judgment about how detailed a chronology should be and what events/information to include.

Format Is this how we want it??

It is most helpful to present chronologies in a table format. The record should clearly indicate which child(ren) or family the chronology relates to.

The following headings are suggested:

Date	Significant Event/Issue

It is possible to sort by data in a Word table. This allows the document to be completed out of order and sorted by date upon completion.

Updating

Existing chronologies on allocated cases should be regularly updated, and updated at a minimum prior to any review, planning, child protection or network meetings.
Existing chronologies on cases that have been re-referred must be updated at either the point of referral or as part of the subsequent assessment (Initial or Core).
Chronologies on Looked After Children should be updated, as a minimum, prior to each LAC Review, ensuring that an easily accessible overview of the case is available, covering key events in the child’s life, including the period of accommodation.

N.B. When updating a chronology electronically it is necessary to save your changes and then remove the old chronology from the Assessment System and attach the revised version.

End

1.	When is a Chronology Required?
	1.1	Specialist cases/teams
2.	What to Include in Chronology
3.	Chronologies for a Different Purpose