Towards best practice: combining evidence‐based research, structured assessment and professional judgement

Abstract

Limitations of instruments adopting consensus and actuarial approaches are well documented when assessing risk of abusive behaviour. Whilst the consensus approach is flexible and useful for structuring information, it relies upon the practitioner's ability to combine information and apply knowledge of empirical research. The actuarial approach involves a graduated probability measure in the form of a score that determines the likelihood of a particular event occurring; however, this approach focuses upon static risk factors and tends to be inflexible given its necessary reliance on nomothetic factors. A third approach, structured professional judgement comprises evidence‐based risk factors and decision‐making guidelines to inform professional judgement and standardize assessments. Instruments focus upon dynamic risk factors that assist practitioners monitor risk levels and manage risk. This approach is useful for social work practice that commonly requires ongoing risk assessments and risk management. Structured professional judgement has not been meaningfully explored in Australian child protection practice despite it being used successfully for approximately two decades for assessing a range of offending and violent behaviour. Given the complexity of child protection cases, further research on approaches to risk assessment that combine evidence‐based research, structured assessment and clinical judgement, is warranted.

SÉCuRE: A clinical tool for comprehensively assessing home safety of people with mental illness

“…SÉ CuRE was developed to systematize the consideration of all contributing factors. In the spirit of assessment tools that rely on structured professional judgment, it is recommended that each of them contributes to the decision-making process, which will ultimately be weighted by professional judgment (De Bortoli et al, 2016). SÉ CuRE pushes the reflective process even further by providing a structured framework not only to document presenting risk factors, but also to allow consideration of the expectations and needs of the individuals concerned (starting with those of the individual whose safety is in question), as well as to help evaluators critically reflect on their own preconceptions.…”

Resistance to Antisocial Peers in Adolescents Found Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder: Predictive and Incremental Validity With the VRAG-R

“…Third-generation assessments measure offender criminogenic needs that can be targeted through treatment (Bonta & Andrews, 2017). Structured professional judgment tools, while not originally considered third generation (see Bonta, 1996), have also been defined as such by recent scholars, given their inclusion of both static and dynamic risk factors and their ability to inform management decisions (Abidin et al, 2013; De Bortoli et al, 2017). Through the evolution of risk assessment practice, researchers have helped to establish risk assessment approaches and tools with empirical validity and clinical utility.…”

Special Issue: Child Protection Vocabulary in Professional Judgement – Fit for Purpose?

“…Taylor and White's observations of this dynamism remains a contemporary issue in safeguarding practice, yet we can extend this dynamic issue to all front-line practice, especially as newer forms of child maltreatment become recognised as social and legal problems (e.g. County Lines).Whilst professional judgement is almost an exclusive qualitative exercise in safeguarding practice, it can be, if available, supported by risk-based consensus, actuarial and structured assessments, tools, and instruments to 'evidence' a threshold decision (De Bortoli et al, 2017). The use of assessments/tools/instruments offers front-line practitioners a way of describing a practical-moral situation in a technical-rational framework, however, their use is only as effective as the practitioner's knowledge on using it, e.g.…”

“…The use of assessments/tools/instruments offers front-line practitioners a way of describing a practical-moral situation in a technical-rational framework, however, their use is only as effective as the practitioner's knowledge on using it, e.g. vigilance for optimising assessment/tool/instrument conditions that maintains equity, validity and reliability (De Bortoli et al, 2017). The use, meanings, and consistency and, to be more precise, equity, validity, and reliability of vocabulary in assessments/tools/instruments for safeguarding practice is under-researched.…”

“…Whilst professional judgement is almost an exclusive qualitative exercise in safeguarding practice, it can be, if available, supported by risk-based consensus, actuarial and structured assessments, tools, and instruments to 'evidence' a threshold decision (De Bortoli et al, 2017). The use of assessments/tools/instruments offers front-line practitioners a way of describing a practical-moral situation in a technical-rational framework, however, their use is only as effective as the practitioner's knowledge on using it, e.g.…”