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North Carolina Family Assessment Scale (NCFAS) and Related Instruments. TheNCFAS (Reed-Ashcraft, Kirk, & Fraser, 2001) was developed in the mid-1990s to allowcaseworkers working in intensive family preservation services (IFPS) to assess familyfunctioning at the time of intake and again at case closure. The 39-item instrument was designedto assist caseworkers in case planning, monitoring of progress, and measuring outcomes. TheNCFAS provides ratings of family functioning on a six-point scale ranging from “clearstrengths” to “serious problems” in the following five domains: (1) environment, (2) parentalcapabilities, (3) family interactions, (4) family safety, and (5) child well-being. Internalconsistency and construct validity have been established for early versions as well as the mostrecent version of the NCFAS (Version 2.0; Reed-Ashcraft et al., 2001, Kirk et al., in press) andthe instrument is able to detect changes in functioning over time. The instrument also appears tohave some degree of predictive validity in relation to placement prevention; however, the authorscaution that the relatively weak capability of the intake ratings to predict placement at closure orthereafter suggest that the NCFAS should not be used as a device to screen out families fromservice at the time of intake (Kirk et al., in press). Additional research with sufficiently largesamples is necessary to establish predictive validity for outcomes of interest.Figure 3. Promising Measures of Comprehensive Family Assessment for Child Welfare byAssessment DomainInstrumentsPatterns ofSocialInteractionFamily Assessment DomainsBackgroundParentingBasicofPracticesNeedsCaregiversOtherBehaviors andConditionsNorth Carolina FamilyAssessment Scale (NCFAS)X X X X XNCFAS-Reunification(NCFAS-R)X X X XStrengths and StressorsTracking Device (SSTD)X X X X XFamily Assessment Form(FAF)X X X X XFamily Assessment Checklist(FAC)X X X XAckerman-Schoendorf Scalesfor Parent Evaluation ofX X X X XCustody (ASPECT)Darlington FamilyAssessment System (DFAS)X X X XX = assesses family functioning in this domain10
The NCFAS for Reunification (NCFAS-R), a collaborative effort between the NationalFamily Preservation Network and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is anassessment instrument used to assist caseworkers using intensive family preservation servicestrategies to successfully reunify families where children have been removed from the home dueto substantiated abuse and or neglect, juvenile delinquency, or the receipt of mental healthservices in a “closed” treatment setting (Reed-Ashcraft et al., 2001). The scale provides familyfunctioning assessment ratings on seven domains relevant to reunification: (1) environment, (2)parental capabilities, (3) family interactions, (4) family safety, (5) child well-being, (6)caregiver/child ambivalence, and (7) readiness for reunification. Like the NCFAS, change scoresfor the NCFAS-R illustrate the amount of measurable change that is achieved during the serviceperiod from intake ratings through closure ratings. Internal consistency and concurrent validity inrelation to the success or failure of reunification cases have been established for this measure.The Strengths and Stressors Tracking Device (SSTD) is another modification of theNCFAS that assesses the strengths and needs of families at intake to help guide case planningand evaluate the effectiveness of treatment. The SSTD is shorter than the NCFAS in its two-pageform but includes an additional 16 items (for a total of 55 items). The SSTD can be completed bycaseworkers in less than 30 minutes. Like the NCFAS, family strengths and stressors are rated ona Likert type scale, with -2 indicating a serious stressor to +2 indicating a clear strength. Unlikethe NCFAS, psychometric information for the SSTD is somewhat limited. In a small validationstudy in a single agency, the SSTD demonstrated high internal consistency in all domains,distinguished between physical abuse and neglect cases at intake, and appeared to be sensitive tospecific changes made by families during the treatment period (Berry, Cash, & Mathiesen,2003). However, further use and validation are needed to establish content and criterion relatedvalidity, including predictive validity, as well as test-retest reliability.Family Assessment Form (FAF). The FAF is a practice-based instrument that wasdeveloped by the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles, a nonprofit child welfare agency, to helppractitioners improve the assessment of families receiving home-based services. The FAF iscurrently used in practice, training, and research settings. The instrument includes 39 items thatrelate to the following five factors: (1) living conditions, (2) financial conditions, (3) interactionsbetween adult caregivers and between caregivers and children, (4) support available to11
Page 1 and 2: Family Assessment in Child Welfare
Page 3 and 4: IntroductionFor child welfare servi
Page 5 and 6: Family Assessment and Measurement C
Page 7 and 8: measures. Briefly, validity is the
Page 9 and 10: 7. What does the instrument tell a
Page 11: In terms of measurement criteria, h
Page 15 and 16: ecommendations by assessing charact
Page 17 and 18: In summary, of the seven most promi
Page 19 and 20: include the Clinical Rating Scale (
Page 21 and 22: Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CA
Page 23 and 24: descriptive and discriminative powe
Page 25 and 26: Implications for PracticeRather tha
Page 27 and 28: techniques. These include allocatin
Page 29 and 30: Appendix AMeasurement Criteria (Per
Page 31 and 32: ESRC Evidence NetworkNHS Centre for
Page 33 and 34: ReferencesAkister, J., & Stevenson-
Page 35: Perlmutter, B. F., & Czar, G. (2001

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