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  Assessing the Support Needs of Adopted Children and their Families: Building Secure New Lives 
  Liza Bingley Miller and Arnon Bentovim,
  Routledge
  ISBN: 9780415409452,
  £16.99

  STAR RATING: 4/5

The requirement to carry out an assessment of needs for an eligible person for adoption support services is a statutory one under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005, writes Anne Burnage.

It is expected that the assessment framework should be used to make such assessments.

This book is helpful in demonstrating, through research and case examples, how the assessment framework can be applied to adopted children and their families whose profile and needs may not be a best fit with this structure.

The book emphasises the model as a process that includes collection of information, analysis and planning. As a model to assist good practice the assessment framework has many strengths but collecting overwhelming amounts of information without the necessary analysis and planning can produce a sort of "social work by numbers" approach. There is also a debate to be had about whether lengthy and detailed assessments are appropriate when services may not ultimately be provided.

However, it is not the remit of this book to ask those questions. Instead this book offers a detailed look at the way that the assessment framework can be applied to adopted children and their families.

Though sometimes less than gripping it is extremely thorough and should be helpful to students, those coming into family placement work for the first time and experienced adoption workers who have not previously used the assessment framework.

Anne Burnage is deputy director, Catholic Children's Society