Guidance for Governors

Information sharing and assessment programme to include Common Assessment Framework and Lead Professional

Date Issued: Autumn Term Agenda 2006

Governors are asked to receive and note the report of the Director of Children’s Services

Information sharing and Assessment (ISA) is a priority government initiative drawn from the Every Child Matters Agenda.It is a significant stream of activity designed to achieve integrated working across the whole of the Children’s workforce and promotes the identification of need leading to early intervention with preventative services to improve outcomes for children.

Directors of Children’s services working in partnership with other agencies are responsible for implementing these developments as part of the Children’s trust arrangements under Sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004.

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Contact:Chris Ballinger

Head of Service - Assessment

Tel: 01384 813200

E-mail:

Dudley Children & Young People’s Partnership

DUDLEY INFORMATION SHARING AND ASSESSMENT (ISA) PROGRAMME

A SUMMARY OF WHAT’S INVOLVED, PROGRESS AND PLANS

The Context

Effective implementation of the ISA Programme involves the whole of the children and young people’s workforce – across all disciplines in the statutory, voluntary and community sectors. In Dudley, we estimate that comes to around 10,000 people, working with 74,831 children and young people aged 0 to 19 years.

The programme is central to the strategy outlined in Every Child Matters and Youth Matters ( to shift the focus from dealing with the consequences of difficulties in children’s lives to preventing things from going wrong in the first place and promoting the five priority outcomes for all children:

  • being healthy;
  • staying safe;
  • enjoying and achieving;
  • making a positive contribution;
  • achieving economic well-being.

ISA will also help to achieve many of the standards set out in the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services. The materials complement the revised Working Together to Safeguard Children (DfES, 2006) which sets out detailed guidance on what to do to safeguard children and the Sure Start Children’s Centres Practice Guidance (DfES, 2005), which focuses on identifying and intervening with the most disadvantaged families.

In summary, ISA is a key component of a Children’s Trust and it is a significant stream of activity designed to achieve integrated working. There are five key elements:

  • Organisation and practice of information sharing;
  • Common Assessment Framework (CAF);
  • Lead Professional;
  • Information Sharing (IS) index; and
  • Children’s Services Directory.

Directors of children’s services, working in partnership with local agencies, are responsible for implementing these developments, as part of their children’s trust arrangements under sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004. The statutory guidance accompanying sections 10 and 11 sets out the Government’s expectations that CAF, the lead professional and information sharing are key aspects of delivering better services to children.

The ISA Vision

The ISA vision is for children and young people to receive the universal services they are entitled to and additional support when required. The vision of ISA for the future is:

  • all children and young people are receiving the universal services they are entitled to and any additional services they need at the earliest opportunity;
  • every practitioner, including social workers, teachers, health visitors, Connexions advisors and others, in Dudley is confident about what types of information they can share about a child or young person, why they can share it, and on what conditions;
  • practitioners know who else is involved and who to refer to if they cannot meet the need alone;
  • children, young people and their families actively engaged in those decisions;
  • simplified common assessment process across all agencies.

Through this integrated and co-ordinated approach, agencies will enable children and young people to achieve the five priority Every Child Matters outcomes.

The Five Key Elements of the ISA Programme

1.Organisation and Practice of Information Sharing

Effective information sharing needs to be supported by robust information sharing protocols and practitioner guidance. With out these in place the likely consequences are:

  • uncertainty among agencies regarding the protocols to which they are signatories;
  • little evidence of evaluation or reviews of many protocols;
  • protocols seen as an early solution for information sharing ‘problems,’ rather than supporting integrated working.

2.The Common Assessment Framework (CAF)

Every practitioner will need to know how to complete a CAF or how to have one completed. Every agency will need to train some staff to complete common assessments and all of their staff will need to be aware of it – across the statutory, voluntary and community sectors and including education, health, Connexions, Child Care and Early Years, Social Care, Police and Youth Justice. DfES expect it to be implemented from April 2006 and to be fully embedded in practice by March 2008.

The CAF aims to support earlier intervention, improve joint working and communication, rationalise assessments and lead to better referrals for specialist services where these are needed. It is a practical and simple initial assessment of a child’s needs, using a format and process shared by all practitioners in different organisations who are working with a child or young person. There are three potential outcomes:

  • No further action;
  • Additional or amended support from the single agency initiating the CAF;
  • Referral for specialist assessment by other agencies.

The assessment is not an end in itself, it is a means of providing additional support where this is needed, and those in contact with the child are responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of intervention.

The CAF follows the child, with professionals building on each other’s assessments to achieve a holistic view of the child’s needs. It should therefore replace existing processes and formats for initial assessment, and, in some cases, specialist assessments may need to be amended to avoid duplication. Consequently, the CAF can be seen as a first stage of some more complex assessments including ASSET in Youth Justice, APIR in Connexions, the SEN Code of Practice and the Core Assessment in Social Care.

3.The Lead Professional and the “Team Around the Child” (TAC)

As with the CAF, the DfES expects the Lead Professional role to be implemented between April 2006 to 2008.

Whenever a CAF results in a number of professionals regularly working with a child or young person, a lead professional should be appointed – the person undertaking this role will vary according to the needs of the child, and in some cases the young person or their family may consider themselves for the role. The purpose of the role is to co-ordinate integrated support through a single point of contact, ensuring appropriate interventions are effectively delivered, and reducing overlap and inconsistency from a range of practitioners. Trailblazer councils have adopted this child-centred approach which can be described as creating a “team around the child” (TAC), where professionals agree their respective roles and where progress is co-ordinated by a lead professional.

Trailblazer authorities have found this approach delivers earlier and more co-ordinated intervention for vulnerable children. However, it may represent a cultural change for some practitioners and agencies. It involves:

  • moving away from referrals of children who cause some concern to specialist services where thresholds for intervention are high;
  • equipping practitioners to undertake assessments using the CAF, so they can more effectively identify areas of concern, and then communicate with other practitioners to agree which agencies need to be involved and who is going to do what to support the child or young person and their family;
  • holding on to responsibility for the child’s support in agreement with others, and contributing to the plan, until handover is agreed or the child’s needs have been met.

4.Information Sharing Index

The DfES intends to establish a national Information Sharing Index by the end of 2008. This will enable practitioners delivering services to children to identify and contact one another easily and quickly, so they can share relevant information about children who need services or about whose welfare they are concerned.

5.Children’s Services Directory

The final element of the ISA programme is the Children’s Services Directory. The original requirement was to provide comprehensive information on local providers, their geographical location, thresholds for service, and referral procedures. The aim was to assist professionals to find suitable services, as well as providing direct access to the children, young people and their families. Since March 2005, the provision of local area service directories has featured in other areas of government work. The Childcare Bill proposes a duty requiring local authorities to provide information to parents on childcare and other local support services for children and young people up to the age of 20.The (former) Office of the Deputy Prime Minister also included the provision of local service directories in its 'Implementing e-Government' work.

Progress in Dudley

The ISA Programme in Dudley has been led by the Family Support Sub-Group of the Children & Young People’s Implementation Group, which in turn reports into the Strategic Partnership. From the Autumn, as part of developing partnership structures, the programme will have a dedicated Steering Group with senior representatives who will lead and champion the change programme collectively, and in their respective agencies.

There has been considerable effort put into moving Dudley towards implementing ISA, particularly so given the limited resources available – a part time Project Manager managed by the Head of Assessment Services, with the support and good will of staff based in a number of agencies. This has been funded through a time limited special grant. However, following the pilot work outlined below, we have arrived at a point where the programme is ready to be rolled out across the Borough and an injection of resources across the Children & Young People’s Partnership is required.

Although there is still a considerable work programme to achieve full implementation, we have reached all of the milestones so far. In particular:

  • The CAF and Lead Professional Role has been implemented in four pilot areas – Wren’s Nest, Thorns, Brierley Hill Sure Start and the Early Support Programme. The pilots have identified a number of success factors, including:
  • the role of a Co-ordinator is essential to support implementation of ISA on a day to day basis and raise awareness in the locality;
  • the need for good preparation and training for all practitioners;
  • the need for an e-CAF solution, so that assessments can be recorded and shared electronically – with system administration support;
  • the need for CAF processes to link with other elements of the ISA programme; and lastly,
  • the need to continuously evaluate progress.

We are now seeking secondments to staff an Implementation Team of 5 CAF Co-ordinators and training support.

  • Children’s Services Directory:Through the Children’s Fund we have implemented an inter-active Service Directory for 5 to 13 year olds, which can be expanded to cover all age groups ( This is provided by the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS). We also have a well established Children’s Information Service. A workshop will be taking place in the Autumn to determine how these and other developments will be brought together to provide an integrated directory.
  • Information Sharing: There are four main protocols used by practitioners – Children in Need, the Crime and Disorder Act Protocol, Child Protection and the Connexions Protocol. Now that the final information guidance has been published, work is underway to develop an over-arching protocol. In addition a “readiness assessment” to inform development of the Information Sharing Index is underway.

Christine Ballinger

Chair of the ISA Steering Group

24th July 2006

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