A Comprehensive Child and Family Assessment (CCFA) is a formal assessment completed soon after a child enters care to gain a thorough understanding of the child and his or her unique family situation. The assessment process is ongoing and involves gathering facts, observations, and information about and from the family, both immediate and extended. Insight is gained about how family members think, feel, behave, relate to one another, and respond to various situations, including the removal of the child. 

A child entering foster care is at higher risk than the general population for developmental delays and/or disabilities. In addition, the shock of out of home placement for the child can result in significant emotional distress and trauma. Consequently, a comprehensive assessment of the child and his or her family can have a powerful life changing impact if problems are identified and early treatment interventions are implemented. 

This assessment will serve as the foundation for the child’s case plan, future case planning decisions, and for making recommendations to the juvenile court. Assessment outcomes will guide staff in making sound decisions about the best placement for the child, the critical service needs of the child and his or her family, and the most viable path for achieving permanency. Initially, the assessment provides useful information for determining the likelihood of reunification, the preferred method for achieving permanency when the long-term safety of the child can be assured. 

The assessment includes family-centered approaches such as family team meetings and multi-disciplinary team staffing to ensure family involvement in the planning and decision making being done on behalf of the child.

Information gathered to compile the Comprehensive Child and Family Assessment will include:

 • The level of parent-child attachment, including where the child feels a sense of belonging 

• The child’s extended family as a possible resource for support and/or placement of the child • Family history and patterns of behavior, for example, previous CPS involvement or out of-home placements, prior experience handling crisis situations, problems with addiction/substance abuse, or criminal behavior, among others • Family strengths and resources that the family can apply 

• The core needs of the family that, at a minimum, must be changed or corrected for the child to be safely returned within a reasonable period

• The probability of the child returning to his or her home or the likelihood of an alternative permanency plan 

• Identification of the medical, emotional, social, educational, and placement-related needs of the child

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