Community Parenting
Assessments
Therapeutic, evidence-based parenting assessments
Trauma Informed Practice
At Libra Children Services, we provide comprehensive and independent parenting assessments designed to give a clear, balanced understanding of a parent or carer’s ability to meet their child’s needs both now and in the future.
Parenting Community Assessment (PCA)
Our Parenting Community Assessment (PCA) is an intensive, home-based programme delivered over an eight-week period. It provides a robust alternative to residential or parent-and-child placements by allowing families to remain in their own homes and communities while receiving structured support and assessment. Often described as a “reverse residential” model, the PCA offers round-the-clock guidance and observation within the natural family environment.
Assessments are overseen by experienced social work professionals and carried out by our dedicated Family Worker Practitioners. Working alongside parents on a daily basis, they provide practical support, role-modelling, and parenting strategies, while simultaneously observing and recording how care is provided and how change is achieved.
What the PCA involves:
Practical parenting support woven into daily routines.
Direct observation of parent-child interactions and the child’s lived experience of care.
Guidance and modelling around safe, consistent, and nurturing parenting.
Step-down planning so that support is gradually reduced, enabling parents to demonstrate independent care where safe to do so.
Support levels are flexible and regularly reviewed, with intensity tailored to the needs and risks of each family. The emphasis is on creating opportunities for parents to evidence progress in a safe, measured way.
Trained and reviewed
Being quality assured with the ParentAssess framework means that our parenting assessments meet the highest standards of consistency, fairness, and therapeutic depth. It ensures that every assessment we complete is delivered in line with the framework’s core principles, including trauma-informed practice, strength-based analysis, and a holistic understanding of parenting capacity.
As a quality-assured service, our assessors are trained, supervised, and regularly reviewed to ensure our work is reflective, ethically sound, and rooted in evidence-based practice. This gives local authorities, courts, and families confidence that our assessments are robust, balanced, and child-centred, not just a checklist, but a meaningful journey towards understanding and change.
Quality Assured
Qualified and motivated professionals
we are proud to hold a Quality Assurance Mark that reflects our commitment to the highest standards of practice.
This recognition demonstrates our dedication to delivering safe, reliable, and evidence-based services, giving families, professionals, and commissioners confidence in the consistency and integrity of our work.