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Contents

1. When is a Chronology Required?  
2. Updating a Chronology  
3. Specialist Cases/teams 
4. Quality Assurance 
5. What to Include in a Chronology  
6. Can Chronologies be Different? 
7. What Should a Chronology Look Like?
8. Monitoring  

1. When is a Chronology Required?

• All allocated cases must have a chronology.
• A chronology must be started for an Initial Child Protection Conference or Network meeting; it should be up-to-date for review meetings
• A chronology must always be started on a case when an assessment Initial Assessment or Core Assessment is initiated.
• Chronologies are required for legal planning meetings and meetings considering voluntary care under Section 20.

2. Updating a Chronology

• Existing chronologies on allocated cases should be regularly updated, at a minimum: prior to any review, planning, child protection or network meetings in respect of Looked After Children or Children in Need.
• Existing chronologies on closed or newly opened cases must be updated at either the point of referral or as part of the subsequent assessment Initial Assessment or Core Assessment.
• Chronologies on Looked After Children should be updated, as a minimum, prior to each Looked After Review,  ensuring that an easily accessible overview of the case is available, covering key events in the child’s life, including the period of accommodation.

3. Specialist Cases/teams

• For Looked After Children who are unaccompanied minors, producing a historical chronology may be difficult but an overview of key events of the child’s life whilst being looked after must be maintained.
• For out of borough (e.g. Healthlink) cases where the home authority holds case responsibility a chronology should still be completed but the focus of this may differ and for example focus on the history of health interventions.

4. Quality Assurance

• The incidence and quality of chronologies should be regularly reviewed as part of all team’s audit and supervision processes.
• Ensuring that all allocated cases have an up to date chronology is an indication of good practice and persistent failure to achieve this standard will be addressed as a performance issue.

5. What to Include in a Chronology

1. The purpose of a chronology is to provide workers, supervisors/managers, children and their families (and possibly the court) with a chronological list of significant events in a child’s or their family’s life.  This enables the reader to quickly gain a picture of formative events and patterns of behaviour, and to analyse the implications of the overall history to improve decision-making.
2. A chronology is not expected to be a repetition of the narrative contained in process or case recordings, but bullet points indicating incidents, events or issues within a family or which significantly affect a child’s life. It therefore requires familiarity with the case information, and analysis to identify the critical moments in a child/family’s life experience.
3. The prompts below indicate the types of issues which might feature in any chronology:
   • Family History - including marriages, births, deaths,  changes in the make-up of the household, and emigration details as appropriate
   • Child’s changes of address/school
   • Case Conference, Child Protection Registration(s) dates
   • Key Network/Planning/Professionals Meetings and Assessments
   • Relevant Medical Examinations
   • Critical Incidents (Police 78’s/CP investigations) giving rise to concern
   • Take up/non take up of services
   • Case open/closed and whether allocated, held on duty or referred to other Agencies - including summarized reason(s) for decision
   • Accommodations (including requests for and consideration of accommodation)
   • Concerning information from Agencies/individuals e.g. allegations (substantiated or otherwise)
   • Recorded positive events or strengths
   • History of Court Applications, Hearings and Orders

6. Can Chronologies be Different?

Yes.

Whilst the impetus for social workers to carry out chronologies arises from the Bracewell judgment and the Laming enquiry and therefore focuses on children in need and child protection cases, there are benefits to doing chronologies in other circumstances.  Chronologies may vary significantly according to the family history, the purpose behind preparing the chronology, and the level and legal status of the social work involvement. For example, it may be helpful to include health diagnosis when completing a chronology for a child with a disability. Practitioners however, must use their professional judgment about how detailed a chronology should be and what events to include.

A chronology built up over time on a child in need case or a child protection case will be different from one prepared as part of court proceedings and probably less detailed. The first is to help us as an agency with our work with a family over time; the second is to help the court make a very important decision at a single point in time.  Equally the ongoing updates of a chronology on a Looked After Child or Unaccompanied Minor will be different (possibly briefer still) and their focus may be as much about helping the young person understand patterns in their life at a later date as helping the agency with its decision-making.

7. What Should a Chronology Look Like?

It is most helpful to present chronologies in a table format. The record should clearly indicate which child or family the chronology relates to. The following headings are suggested:

Date	Significant Event/Issue	Author/team
1/03/04	Baby Peter is born at St. Mary’s Hospital	RH/COTH
4/09/04	Family move from Westminster to RBKC	RH/COTH
4/02/05	Referral for family support received.	RH/COTH

8. Monitoring

Because of the difficulties in differentiating between cases and types of cases all allocated cases will be monitored for chronologies.

End