Personal Plans

Chronologies

 

What are they?

“Chronologies provide a key link in the chain of understanding needs/risks, including the need for protection from harm.  Setting out key events in sequential date order, they give a summary timeline of child and family circumstances (or those of an individual using adult services), patterns of behaviour and trends in lifestyle that may greatly assist any assessment and analysis.  They are a logical, methodical and systematic means of organising, merging and helping make sense of information.  They also help to highlight gaps and omitted details that require further exploration, investigation and assessment.”

(National Risk Framework, Scottish Government, 2012, p. 70)

“Accurate record-keeping and meaningful chronologies ensure that the relevant staff have the information they need to help them keep children safe and protected.”

(A Quality Framework for daycare of children, childminding and school-aged children, Care Inspectorate, 2021, p. 17)

“The essential purpose of the chronology is to draw together important information and assist understanding, highlighting early indications of emerging patterns of concern.”

(Practice Guide to Chronologies, Care Inspectorate, 2017, p. 2)

 

Key messages:

Where appropriate, chronologies should show clear evidence of links to the child’s learning journey, mainly where input from parents, carers or other agencies has resulted in practitioners planning and carrying out specific learning interventions or introducing particular resources.

Chronologies should:

  • Detail the child’s name and date of birth
  • Include facts (no opinions), dates and times
  • Provide a summary timeline of child and family circumstances
  • Include dates and information of key professional interventions, e.g. reviews, macs, UPM
  • Detail very brief notes of events, e.g. a fall downstairs, coming to school with a bruise
  • Contain enough information for the entry to make sense – more than ‘behaved inappropriately’
  • Detail what actions were taken in response to the information gathered, including if no action was taken
  • Detail what was the impact or outcome of these actions for the child?  What has changed or happened as a result of your actions?
  • Make reference to other plans like Individual Education Plans (IEPs)
  • Reflect that practitioners are mindful that chronologies can be seen by parents and carers
  • Be shared with other professionals when required, including through periods of transition

(Practice Guide to Chronologies, Care Inspectorate, 2017)

 

Ways we can do this:

During transition periods, there is a shared professional responsibility for continuity of learning, care, support and challenge, and sharing key information appropriately and in good time.

Each child should have a chronology with their Care Plan/All About Me stored in chronological order.

Make sure the child’s name and date of birth are included on each page of the chronology.

Number the pages to ensure no pages are missing and kept in order.

Make sure what is recorded is accurate and factual – do not include your opinions.

Practitioners consider the child’s perspective; what is the significance for them?

Take time to build positive relationships with families to develop an ethos of trust and openness.  Then, speak to parents about concerns to find out the bigger picture.

Share any concerns regarding child protection issues with the designated practitioners immediately.

Spend time regularly as a team (weekly agenda item) sharing new information from children’s chronologies so that a picture of the child as a whole is created and all practitioners have the necessary information to support the child.

Ensure that actions that have been put into place to support the child are reviewed, as this makes sure that the actions are effective and allows for revision if they are not proving effective.

Keyworkers/ childminders should regularly look through chronologies to spot any patterns emerging.

 

Linked Areas of Practice

Care Plans

Learning Journeys

Medication

Personal Plans

Transitions

 

Tools  

Reflecting on Practice

SBC Guidance to support

National Guidance to support

Further Reading to support

Training to support

SBC Early Years training video Chronologies Bitesize:

Follow link for acronyms used in presentations

To see all the SBC Early Years training videos visit:

Think about if you need to take action to improve the outcome for the child.  If you do, then it is significant. 

A significant event may include: 

    • Significant changes in the child or young person’s wellbeing.  Think about the Health and Wellbeing indicators, e.g. significant accident at the setting, significant change in behaviour, repeated illness, repeated lateness or lateness being picked up
    • Significant changes in the parent or carer’s wellbeing impacting on the child.  This may also include other significant adults in the child’s life, e.g. grandparents, childminder
    • Significant changes in the family structure, e.g. housing, unemployment, separation, divorce, bereavement, the birth of a sibling, new partner, presence of a significant adult 
    • Significant changes in the child’s child protection status, legal status or referral to Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration 
    • Events including missed appointments, absences from school, exclusion from school, running away/missing, frequency of child concern reports, referrals, investigations, case conferences, registrations
    • Frequent changes in professional staff or services/agencies
    • Introduction of or changes in medication
    • Meetings, e.g. Meetings Around the Child or UPM and visits from partner agencies, such as Speech and Language Therapy or Occupational Therapy 
    • Significant changes in the family’s life, e.g. new sibling, death of a pet, house move, long holiday
    • Conversations with parents are noted, and a more detailed record is kept in a place decided by the setting