Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) Practice Guidance 1 - Using the National Practice Model

4. The Getting it right for every child National Practice Model

The National Practice Model diagram summary below brings together the My World Triangle, Resilience Matrix, eight wellbeing indicators (SHANARRI) (see glossary) and the four contexts for learning within Curriculum for Excellence, to support overall assessment. It is intended to provide a structure to support practitioners, working together with children, young people and families, to make effective use of assessment information. This information will likely have been gathered from multiple sources, including regular information gathering processes on the progress of a child or young person with full participation from the child or young person.

Making sense of that information is a crucial next step before making a plan which supports a child or young person. A resilience-based approach fits closely with the aims of GIRFEC to build on the strengths in the child’s whole world, always drawing on what the family, community and universal services can offer.

When assessment, planning and action are needed, the GIRFEC National Practice Model can be used in a single or multi-agency (see glossary) context:

• It provides a framework to structure and analyse information consistently to take account of the strengths, challenges faced by a child or young person, alongside their needs, and to consider the scaffolding of support that may be required; and
• It enables full participation of children, young people and their families in gathering information to assess what support they may need, and to make joint decisions to plan and deliver that support.

The National Practice Model is based on an understanding of a child or young person’s world based on an ecological model (see glossary) that considers the child or young person to be at the heart of their family and community. It is a dynamic and evolving process of assessment, analysis, action and review, and a way to identify outcomes and solutions together with children or young people.

Using the National Practice Model in this consistent way allows practitioners, together with children, young people and families, to undertake an assessment, construct a plan and provide appropriate support. It also allows for regular and consistent review of the plan.