A chronology can be helpful in drawing on agency information and knowledge about the family to identify significant events in the life of the child and carers. Yet:
- these are often not completed;
- they are not routinely updated;
- they have significant gaps and errors;
- are a list of event dates with no explanation of meaning of event recorded;
- lack detail of services provided and family response to these.
In order to assist agencies prepare meaningful, child-centred chronologies, the Scottish Care Inspectorate has prepared comprehensive guidance (Care Inspectorate 2017 p.6). They have specified what should be included in a chronology as:
- Key dates such as dates of birth, life events, and moves.
- Facts, such as a child’s name placed on the child protection register, multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) meeting, adult who is subject to adult protection procedures.
- Transitions, life changes.
- Key professional interventions such as reviews, hearings, tribunals, court disposals.
- A very brief note of an event, for example a fall down stairs, coming to school with a bruise, a registered sex offender whose car keeps ‘breaking down’ outside a primary school.
- At the same time, the writer needs to provide enough information for the entry to make sense.
- Statements like: “[the individual] behaved inappropriately...” do not necessarily have sufficient detail.
- The actions that were taken. Many chronologies list events and dates but do not have a column which enables the action taken to be recorded or, if no action was taken, to explain why.
- Not opinions. These may be for the case record, but the strength of chronologies lies in their reporting of facts, times, and dates and so on.
At the beginning of the assessment it is helpful for each agency to prepare an agency specific chronology. Later, as professionals begin to make sense of the information gathered a multi-agency chronology can be developed by extracting and co-ordinating the single agency contributions. This can be used to provide a child’s timeline and increase understanding of past patterns of behaviours, significant events and service interventions.
Further information:
Scottish Care Inspectorate (2016) Practice Guide to Chronologies, (Accessed 15/7/2019)
Hardy R (2018) Why a chronology should be the first thing you do in an assessment Community Care, (Accessed 15/7/2019)