Impact Assessments
Impact Assessments uses a modern and dynamic software solution for conducting residential parenting assessments for use by Local Authorities and the Family Court. Designed for use in Residential Family Centres by the whole staff team to record daily observations, create weekly summary reports and produce Court standard parenting assessments. Impact Assessments underpin evidence-based decision-making in care proceedings.
Improve Efficiency
Improve Efficiency
Manage observations, well-being, summaries and reports on one easy-to-use platform.
Cloud Secure Data
Cloud Secure Data
Your data is protected in the Cloud and backups are performed with no disruption to service.Lifetime Support
Lifetime Support
Impact Assessments provides a reactive help desk with dedicated personal support.
Unlimited Users
Unlimited Users
It can be used by any size of service, from single buildings to multi-site premises.
Created for Residential Family Centres – by a Residential Family Centre
The development of Impact Assessments has been undertaken by Amber Family to record, store, and analyse the wealth of day-to-day observations that are collated during a residential parenting assessment. The information collected informs teaching, support, and the final care plan for a family.
An easy-to-use “Heat Map” documents the parent’s journey from the start of their placement until the publication of their final report and illustrates progress made whilst undergoing their assessment. Additionally a “real-time” safeguarding action plan can be updated and accessed by all staff working alongside the family. The software provides a safe and robust method of gathering evidence that can be presented to the Family Court to inform future care planning for the child.
What’s Included With Your Impact Assessment App Subscription
Every subscription gives your Residential Family Centre full access to our secure, cloud-based parenting assessment platform widely recognised by the Family Court and Local Authorities.
No hidden costs. Unlimited users. Cancel anytime.
Frequently Asked Questions
Impact Assessments recognise the importance that a parenting assessment has on the outcome of families’ lives and the gravitas it has in informing care proceedings, developing individual support packages and ultimately keeping children safe. Impact Assessments has created an innovative assessment that works for the modern family allowing their parenting skills and knowledge to be fairly, honestly and openly assessed.
Assessing families is a complex process that must consider a range of childcare, self-care, and environmental issues. Using a clear, consistent method to collate a parent’s assessment journey allows for a robust evidence-based assessment to be produced. An Impact Assessment is a tool that is easy to use, transparent and follows a consistent process that takes a forensic approach to understanding parenting capacity.
Impact Assessments strives to change the image of parenting assessments, making them accessible to all, providing parents with relevant feedback and giving parents opportunities to learn.
When a Social Worker creates the final report, they have the evidence categorised, allowing their professional judgement and analysis to be added along with their final recommendations.
Whilst the Impact Assessment is not based on any singular assessment model, the framework for Assessment 2000 has been considered in the development of the assessment areas. This is very important to note because one of our reasons for developing Impact was our frustration at static parenting assessments currently being championed in the courts.
Parenting is dynamic, and there is no universal definition of what constitutes ‘good parenting’. Couple this with the ever-changing guidelines and regulations set forward by the NHS about what constitutes ‘safe’ parenting, we believe that Impact’s ability to be flexible and shape around the family rather than the other way around is one of its defining features.
The app keeps a record of everything that it is used for, whether that’s individual observation logs, wellbeing check-ins when the initial well-being is completed, when the summary reports are completed, and when the final report is produced. The app has been designed this way to fix a flaw in the current system, in that sometimes recommendations are made based on very little interaction with the parents, yet all reports are currently held to the same standard.
We have created Impact Assessments to reflect the much-needed balance between professional judgement and empirical evidence; you will get out what you put into an Impact Assessment and that will be clear for everyone involved in the family court process to see.
Yes, Impact Assessments fully caters for individuals with a range of needs. Throughout development, comprehensive research was
completed to ensure we use easy-to-understand language and that the data is presented in an accessible format.
Whilst the Final Assessment Report and Outcome Recommendations must be completed by a registered Social Worker, the
operational input of the assessment can be completed by any member of staff working with the family in the residential setting.
*Standard 16 of Ofsted National Minimum Standards
The app has been designed to be user friendly therefore, there is no requirement for lengthy training sessions. We provide an initial
training session alongside access to a support desk and ‘how to’ resources. If you, or any members of your team, feel they would
benefit from additional training, this can be arranged at no additional cost.
Impact Assessments is a web-based app that can be run across a multitude of devices; whilst we recommend using a laptop or
desktop to generate any of the word-based reports from the app, simply for your storage purposes, the day-to-day uses of the app
such as adding to the logs and wellbeing check-ins can be done on any device that can access the internet, be that a tablet, iPad
or a mobile phone.
As it is a web-based app you only need to have access to the internet to gain access to the app, so long as you have your login
details you can run Impact on as many devices as you want.
Yes, more than one professional can access these at the same time.
Access to the app is just for professionals. However, the Wellbeing functions should be completed alongside the parents so they can
have their input. This can be achieved using a handheld device such as a tablet. It is advised that you remain with the parents when
they are completing the Wellbeing activities.
One of the advantages of Impact Assessments is that it is dynamic and easy to amend to keep up to date with any change in NHS
guidelines, legislation or external environmental factors. Impact Assessments has a built-in feedback widget for users of the app to
provide feedback to Impact Assessments to inform future updates to the software. Any changes implemented as a result of this
feedback will be rolled out with minimal disruption to users, so you’re always working on the latest version of the app.
On the Login page, there is a ‘Forgot Password’ button. If you enter your email address registered with your Impact account, you will
be sent a link to reset your password.
