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NCFAS-G: An Assessment Scale for Low to Moderate Risk Families PDF Print E-mail
The North Carolina Family Assessment Scale for General Services (NCFAS-G) is designed specifically for use by child and family serving agencies employing an integrated services model. Many families may be at low to moderate risk of child maltreatment, and not sufficiently high risk to warrant a child protection response. However, these families could benefit from services, particularly voluntary services, that are intended to reduce future risk of child maltreatment, or simply to increase the families’ level of family functioning, resource management, safety, self-sufficiency or health.

Serving these families is increasingly recognized as being cost effective in the public services environment, and many states and counties are developing mechanisms to identify and engage these families in services. Alternative practice models are being implemented that integrate services in which families voluntarily participate. Some of these models are called multiple response, differential response, dual track, or other similar names intended to imply the voluntary nature of the families’ involvement with the child welfare agency, as well as the breadth of services available. The guiding principle of these integrated service programs is for the public agency to “partner” with families to offer assistance before family stressors or circumstances overwhelm the family to the point that children are at high risk of harm. The service approaches underlying integrated service systems are intended to be strengths-based, and based upon assessments of family functioning rather than upon child maltreatment investigations.

The NCFAS-G was developed to assist these types of programs to achieve their goals. The NCFAS-G assists workers to assess families in eight domains of family functioning: Environment, Parental Capabilities, Family Interactions, Family Safety, Child Well-Being, Social and Community Life, Self-Sufficiency, and Family Health. The scale provides assessment ratings of problems and strengths, both at intake and at case closure.

In 2006, the NCFAS-G was field tested in a large county child welfare system with its newly implemented differential response program. Results of the field test are very encouraging. The scale was employed with well over 100 families, involving more than 250 children. The psychometric properties of the Scale indicate a high degree of reliability. In addition, the ratings on the Scale that were obtained by workers in the field test were very consistent with the low to moderate risk families that the county was striving to engage, and the treatment outcomes suggest good concurrent validity. A comprehensive research report is being written that will provide the details of the field test, and it is being submitted for publication.

A training package on the NCFAS-G is also available from NFPN.
 
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