Brief Description
The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) is a versatile assessment designed for children's services to aid in decision-making, such as determining the appropriate level of care and monitoring outcomes. The CANS utilizes a rating scale to summarize key areas concerning the child/youth’s needs—in school, at work, at home, and in relationships with friends and others. It also identifies the strengths of the child/youth and caregivers. The CANS includes six subscales: Behavioral/Emotional Needs, Cultural, Caregiver Resources, Life Domain Functioning, Risk Behaviors, and Strengths.
Assessment Administration Type
Clinician-administered to youth and their family
Number of questions
Basic core items (50 items), organized by domain, are rated for all individuals. A rating of 1, 2, or 3 on essential core questions activates extension modules, which offer further details in specific areas and can include up to 137 items in total.
Age Range for Administration
Ages 6-20
Recommended Frequency of Administration
Typically completed every six months
Summary of Scoring and Interpretations
Each item on the CANS is scored on a 0 to 3 Likert-type scale, with each respective item having its own detailed response options. All item response options can be understood as corresponding to the action levels described below, with distinct interpretations for needs versus strengths.
Rating needs
Rating | Level of need | Appropriate action |
0 | No evidence of need | No action needed |
1 | Significant history or possible need that is not interfering with functioning | Watchful waiting/prevention/additional assessment |
2 | Need interferes with functioning | Action/intervention required |
3 | Need is dangerous or disabling | Immediate action/intensive action required |
Rating strengths
Rating | Level of strength | Appropriate action |
0 | Centerpiece strength | Central to planning |
1 | Strength present | Useful in planning |
2 | Identified strength | Build or develop strength |
3 | No strength identified | Strength creation or identification may be indicated |
CANS items that are originally rated a ‘2’ or ‘3’ are monitored over time to assess positive progress, which means moving to a rating of ‘0’ or ‘1’ (i.e., resolved need, built strength).
The CANS includes six subscales/domains: Behavioral/Emotional Needs, Cultural, Caregiver Resources, Life Functioning, Risk Behaviors, and Strengths. Dimension scores are generated by summing items within each of the domains (Behavioral/Emotional Needs, Risk Behaviors, Life Functioning, etc.). These scores can be compared over the course of treatment.
Blueprint Adjustments
While instructions for when to use extension modules are provided within the assessment, note that all 137 CANS items are included on Blueprint. Please be mindful to skip the extension modules that are not necessary according to the ratings for respective items.
Clinical Considerations
Estimated Completion Time: 15-70 minutes (depending on need for extension modules)
When developing service and treatment plans for healthy youth trajectories, balancing the plan to address risk behaviors/needs and protective factors/strengths is critical.
CANS dimension/domain scores have been shown to be valid outcome measures in residential treatment, intensive community treatment, foster care and treatment foster care, community mental health, and juvenile justice programs.
Citation
Relevant Articles + Further Resources
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