About This Course
Age assessment is one of those areas of social work where good practice really matters — and where the gap between adequate and expert can have serious consequences for the young people involved. The Age Assessment Masterclass is a one-hour video course for experienced practitioners who want to develop real depth and confidence in their practice. Whether you've been doing assessments for years or are taking on more complex work, this course is designed to stretch your thinking and give you practical tools you can apply straight away. Delivered by Matt Vincent, a registered social worker with over 25 years' experience including eight years managing a Children's Asylum Team, it covers the four areas where practitioners most want to develop: how expert assessors think, how to handle complex and high-stakes cases, advanced analysis and decision-making, and writing assessments that are genuinely defensible under scrutiny. You'll work through three realistic case vignettes — a document conflict, a significant age discrepancy, and a case involving country expert evidence — with detailed commentary on the common mistakes and how an expert assessor approaches each one. There's dedicated focus on the analysis section of the report, where most assessments are weakest, and practical guidance on the specific language choices that strengthen or undermine a write-up. By the end you'll have a clearer framework for thinking about evidence, more confidence handling difficult cases, and concrete tools for producing assessments that stand up when they need to.