Managing neglect is complex and multi-faceted and cannot be easily defined.
The child and adolescent neglect toolkit is a structured judgement tool designed to assist professionals to identify whether children and adolescents are at risk of, or experiencing, parental neglect (parent is used throughout to refer to any main caregiver) and to plan action to address this.
It is a tool to be used supervision, and/or multi-agency meetings (such as core groups, child in need or team around family) meeting and in partnership with families, to help professionals to reflect on the child/young persons circumstances, and help to put concerns into context, identifying strengths and resources. The toolkit can be used to inform decision-making, assessments and planning. It does not replace other professional assessments processes but is a complementary framework.