Common Assessment Framework (CAF) Frequently Asked Questions

Transcription

1 Common Assessment Framework (CAF) Frequently Asked Questions Last updated November 2009

2 Content Q1. What is the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)?... 1 Q2. What does the Common Assessment Framework consist of?... 1 Q3. What is the background to the CAF?... 1 Q4. Why do we need Common Assessments?... 1 Q5. What does the Common Assessment involve?... 2 Q6. Which children and young people is CAF for?... 2 Q7. Who will carry out Common Assessments?... 2 Q8. Do all practitioners need to be assessors?... 3 Q9. What training do practitioners need to have?... 3 Q10. When should a Common Assessment be carried out?... 3 Q11. Should a CAF be completed if it is believed a child is at risk of harm?... 3 Q12. What is the process that should be followed to carry out a Common Assessment?... 4 Q13. Does the CAF add a layer of bureaucracy?... 4 Q14. Does the CAF collect unnecessary information about children and their parents?... 4 Q15. Do I have to fill in every box on a Common Assessment Framework Form?... 4 Q16. What are the benefits of the CAF?... 5 Q17. Why do I have to liaise with the CAF Coordinator when I start or update a CAF?... 5 Q18. How do I contribute if a CAF s already been started by somebody else?... 5 Q19. I have completed a Common Assessment what happens next?... 5 Q20. How do I involve small children?... 6 Q21. What about young people?... 6 Q22. Why does the family or young person need to have a copy of the CAF?... 6 Q23. What is the relationship between the CAF, the Lead Professional and Information Sharing?... 6 Q24. How often should reviews be conducted, how are reviews recorded and CAFs updated?... 7 Q25. Does every child/young person that my service currently works with need a Common Assessment?... 7 Q26. Can a CAF be used to assess the needs of unborn babies?... 7 Q27. What happens if the Common Assessment highlights competing needs of a teenage parent and their baby, how do we resolve that tension?... 7 Q28. In families where more than one sibling has a Common Assessment does the Lead Professional have to be the same person for all of the children?... 7 Q29. How does CAF link to adult services?... 8 Q30. How is information kept confidential?... 8 Q31. How does a Common Assessment fit in when a child/young person is receiving a service from another borough?... 8 Q32. What happens if different practitioners don t agree on what constitutes an appropriate response to support a child/young person or who needs to do what?... 8 Q33. What is informed consent?... 8 Q34. What do I do if somebody withdraws consent?... 9 Q35. Who needs to sign the Common Assessment Framework Form?... 9 Q36. When can I proceed without consent?... 9 Q37. Where does ContactPoint fit into this picture?... 9 Q38. Will information from the Common Assessment be held in ContactPoint? Q39. Sensitive services and CAF enquiries... 10

3 Common Assessment Framework (CAF) Frequently Asked Questions Q1. What is the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)? The CAF is a shared assessment tool for use across all children s services and all local areas in England. It aims to help early identification of need and promote coordinated service provision. Q2. What does the Common Assessment Framework consist of? The CAF has three elements: 1. A simple pre-assessment checklist to help practitioners decide who would benefit from a Common Assessment 2. A four-step process (prepare, discuss, deliver and review) for undertaking a common assessment, to help practitioners gather and understand information about the needs and strengths of the child, based on discussions with the child, their family and other practitioners as appropriate 3. A standard form to help practitioners record, and, where appropriate, share with others, the findings from the assessment in terms that are helpful in working with the family to find a response to unmet needs Q3. What is the background to the CAF? The Green Paper Every Child Matters (September 2003) proposed the introduction of a national CAF as an important part of a strategy for helping children and young people to achieve the five priority outcomes of: being healthy staying safe enjoying and achieving making a positive contribution achieving economic well-being This responded to concerns that services and practitioners tend to assess particular aspects of a child s welfare and development, with the risk that potential needs lying outside that focus may be overlooked. Assessments often take place entirely uninformed by previous assessments. The statutory guidance accompanying sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004 sets out the Government s expectations that the Common Assessment Framework, the Lead Professional and Information Sharing are key aspects of delivering better services to children. This will lead to greater standardisation and will facilitate cross-border working. Q4. Why do we need Common Assessments? There are four important reasons: 1. To give all practitioners working with children and young people a holistic tool for identifying a child s needs before they reach crisis point and a shared language for discussing and addressing them 1

4 2. To ensure important needs are not overlooked and reduce the scale of assessments that some children and young people undergo 3. To provide a common structure to record information and facilitate information sharing between practitioners 4. To provide evidence to facilitate requests to involve other agencies, reducing unnecessary referrals and enabling specialist services to focus their resources where they are most needed Q5. What does the Common Assessment involve? The assessment process encourages practitioners to consider the needs of the child or young person in three key domains: 1. Development of child, baby or young person Health: o general health o physical development o speech, language and communications development Emotional and social development Behavioural development Identity, including self-esteem, self-image and social presentation Family and social relationships Self-care skills and independence Learning o understanding, reasoning and problem solving o participation in learning, education and employment o progress and achievement in learning o aspirations 2. Parents and carers Basic care, ensuring safety and protection Emotional warmth and stability Guidance, boundaries and stimulation 3. Family and environmental factors Family history, functioning and well-being Wider family Housing, employment and financial considerations Social & community factors and resources, including education Q6. Which children and young people is CAF for? Most children will not need a Common Assessment. CAF is for children and young people with additional unmet needs. These are children and young people who, according to the judgement of practitioners, require extra support to help them achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes (being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well-being) Q7. Who will carry out Common Assessments? The majority of Common Assessments will be undertaken or arranged by practitioners in universal services such as early years settings (for example children s centres), schools and health settings. These services are best equipped to identify possible needs in their early stages. 2

5 Common Assessments, particularly in the context of extended schools, will help schools tackle, along with other services, a broader range of social and behavioural issues acting as a barrier to learning and attainment. Similarly, in health, Common Assessments will help midwives and health visitors take a broad view of the issues affecting unborn and new born infants, as part of the national child health promotion programme; practitioners will apply these principles to older children and young people in other settings, such as health drop-ins in schools and further education colleges. The police will also have an important role in identifying children with additional needs and arranging for Common Assessments. However all practitioners working with children and young people should have an awareness of the CAF and either know how to complete a Common Assessment themselves or know how to arrange to have one carried out. Everyone working with children should be aware of the sorts of situations that indicate the need for a Common Assessment. Q8. Do all practitioners need to be assessors? All services should train at least some of their staff in completing Common Assessments. Assessors would have the specific skills and knowledge to complete a Common Assessment and some knowledge of local services and thresholds for access. Q9. What training do practitioners need to have? The Integrated Working team in the council provides CAF training and support for practitioners, Lead Professionals and Designated Officers as well as team specific training when required. If you need to arrange training please check then click on training where a course description, available dates and an on-line booking form are provided. Q10. When should a Common Assessment be carried out? A Common Assessment can be done at any time on unborn babies, new babies, children or young people. It is designed for use when: there is concern about how well a child (or unborn baby) or young person is progressing (this includes particularly vulnerable children and young people such as persistent truants and young runaways); their needs are unclear, or broader than a service can address on its own a common assessment would help identify the needs, and provide a basis for getting other services involved The Pre-Assessment Checklist can be used to help identify if a common assessment should be completed. The decision about whether to do an assessment should be made jointly with the child and/or parent. Children should always be encouraged to discuss the assessment with their parents. If the child is old enough and competent to understand, they may make their own decision. Q11. Should a CAF be completed if it is believed a child is at risk of harm? No. CAF does not replace Child Protection procedures. If a child is at risk of significant harm, follow established child protection procedures and refer to the Initial Response Team, Specialist Children s Services without delay. (You may be asked to follow up the telephone referral by providing your written evidence on a CAF form.) 3

6 Q12. What is the process that should be followed to carry out a Common Assessment? Step 1: Preparation This involves recognising potential needs and then discussing the situation with the child, involving parents or carers unless this is not appropriate. The practitioner may talk to their manager, colleagues, or others possibly those already involved with the child. It is important to find out whether a common assessment already exists. After reviewing the existing information a practitioner decides whether to undertake a common assessment with the agreement of the child and or family as appropriate. Step 2: Discussion Complete the assessment with the child and family, making use of information already gathered from the child, family or other practitioners, and completing a consent statement. At the end of the discussion the practitioner should understand better the child s strengths, needs, and what can be done to help. Step 3: Delivery This involves agreeing actions that the practitioner s service or the family can deliver, and considering what may be needed from other services. According to local practice, decisions may be made through meetings with other practitioners and the family, and the appointment of one practitioner as lead professional where integrated support is required. Note: the CAF does not give a practitioner the ability to guarantee a service from another organisation without consulting that organisation. Step 4: Monitor and Review Evaluate if the action plan agreed is actually having a positive impact in the child needs; involve other services or end interventions if required. Remember to keep the process child centred, monitor and review regularly, and plan your exit strategy. Q13. Does the CAF add a layer of bureaucracy? No. The CAF should reduce bureaucracy. Subject to consent from the child, young person or parent, the reduction will come from a practitioner building on information that has already been gathered, rather than collecting it from scratch. Q14. Does the CAF collect unnecessary information about children and their parents? The Common Assessment is about trying to understand a child s needs in a holistic way, rather than through lots of different assessments that are not linked. This is in order to provide them with a quality service. It is not about information gathering for its own sake. Common Assessment, in line with established good practice for assessment, will operate with the full knowledge and involvement of the child/young person or their parent/carer. Q15. Do I have to fill in every box on a Common Assessment Framework Form? No. Just fill in the boxes that are relevant. Try and focus equally on strengths and needs with the child/young person/family for every area that is relevant. 4

7 Q16. What are the benefits of the CAF? Quicker and better service provision to children and families, due to the CAF looking at the whole child rather than the needs of the child from the perspective of one particular agency Less repetition and duplication for children, young people and families, as the information in the CAF is shared, with consent, between practitioners Better understanding and more effective communication amongst practitioners, by using a common language Time savings for practitioners, who will be able to build on existing CAF information rather than collecting it themselves from scratch Family engagement and involvement throughout the process Q17. Why do I have to liaise with the CAF Coordinator when I start or update a CAF? More than one practitioner could discuss starting a Common Assessment with a child/young person at the same time: this could lead to duplication and confusion, which can be avoided by liaising with the CAF Coordinator to update all CAF activity. Q18. How do I contribute if a CAF s already been started by somebody else? By contacting the CAF Coordinator you will know if somebody else has started a CAF process with that child/young person. The CAF Coordinator will put you in touch with the Lead Professional working with the child. You can contact the CAF Coordinator on or [email protected] Q19. I have completed a Common Assessment what happens next? As the CAF initiator, you are now responsible for gathering the Team Around the Child (TAC) and, with consent: Contact the practitioners that will be working with you and arrange a first meeting as soon as possible Securely share the CAF with all the practitioners involved and the CAF Coordinator Initiate the process of delivering the action plan agreed during your discussion with the child and family Agree a Lead Professional (you may remain the Lead Professional or a new practitioner may be appointed) Remember to update all TAC members and the CAF Coordinator of any new developments, i.e. progress; issues with the plan and if you are considering the intervention of the CAF Panel; new Lead Professional has been identified; consent has changed; revision date has changed; CAF closing, etc. You can securely share the CAF with other practitioners and the CAF Coordinator by: Post: Sealed envelope addressed by name to the appropriate person within each organisation. Clearly marked Personal and confidential to be opened by the recipient only. Inform the recipient that the information has been sent and ask them to make arrangements for it to be delivered to them unopened and to let you know as soon as they have received it. named professionals you know will be working with you within the organisation never mass . 5

8 Use a CJIT address, which will encrypt the information and transfer it securely. The use of the Criminal Justice Secure service is fully explained on their website including instructions for other organisations on how to join the network. Richmond Council is successfully using this service and we strongly recommend its use. If the is not dispatched through the CJIT secure system, because it contains sensitive information you have to: o o o Password protect the CAF document. (Open the document in Word, click on Tools, then click on Options, select the Security tab, assign a password and save the document before closing it.) CAF forms are big documents, so you might need to zip it to compress its size before ing it. (Find the document on your drive, right click on it and choose Send To, then click on Compressed (zipped) folder. Attach the compressed/zipped folder to your . Request an acknowledgement that the attachment has been received. Then, and only then, should you the recipient the password to open the attachment. Please check the Information sharing - guidance for managers and practitioners for more tips about sharing information safely. Alternatively please contact the CAF Coordinator on or [email protected] Q20. How do I involve small children? Try and observe young children or use play to creative approaches to engage them in some basic discussions. Q21. What about young people? Don t assume that because of a young person s age they have sufficient understanding (or competence) to give informed consent. If an older young person is expected to make the transition to adult services in the near future, consider that transition in the action planning section in the Common Assessment Framework Form. Q22. Why does the family or young person need to have a copy of the CAF? The CAF process is designed to be empowering, open and transparent. It s important that all who have given consent have a copy of exactly what has been recorded on the Common Assessment Framework Form. This level of engagement increases the chances of achieving the initial goals. Q23. What is the relationship between the CAF, the Lead Professional and Information Sharing? The CAF, the Lead Professional and Information Sharing are all essential for the effective provision of integrated services to children and families. The Common Assessment provides a process for identifying needs and bringing services together to meet those needs more swiftly and effectively Where a range of needs are identified that require an integrated response, the Lead Professional coordinates these actions and acts as a single point of contact for the child and family Effective information sharing then helps practitioners work together to deliver a coherent and relevant service to the child and family 6

9 Q24. How often should reviews be conducted, how are reviews recorded and CAFs updated? Review periods will probably depend on the complexity of need. If there are lots of needs or services it may be better to initiate a review a few weeks after the Common Assessment has been completed, if needs are less complex a review could be three months after the CAF has been initiated. Record the outcomes of your reviews on the Delivery Plan and Review forms at the back of the CAF Form. If you are the lead professional, please make sure that the child and family, the TAC and the CAF Coordinator receive the updated Delivery Plan and Review. Q25. Does every child/young person that my service currently works with need a Common Assessment? We recommend that you prioritise starting CAFs with new children/young people that you work with (who have additional unmet needs requiring support from more than one service). We hope that this will help to make the implementation of CAF manageable. However, if you think starting a Common Assessment would really help a child/young person already known to your service e.g. their needs are deteriorating, or there are lots of services involved that require coordination, then feel free to seek informed consent to start one. Q26. Can a CAF be used to assess the needs of unborn babies? Yes. Some fields in the Common Assessment Framework Form won t be relevant leave them blank. In the name of the child/ young person box put unborn baby of and then insert the mother s name. Make sure that you contact the midwife to involve them in the CAF process. Q27. What happens if the Common Assessment highlights competing needs of a teenage parent and their baby, how do we resolve that tension? In this situation you would need to have separate Common Assessments for the teenage parent and for their baby, in order to support both parties in their own right specifically re: needs, strengths or interventions that primarily apply to them. One person s needs must never preclude meeting another person s needs. The reviews and action plans would need to be complimentary and if there were two different Lead Professionals, they would need to work very closely together. Q28. In families where more than one sibling has a Common Assessment does the Lead Professional have to be the same person for all of the children? No. The Lead Professional needs to be the right person to respond to the particular needs and strengths of the individual child and to inspire their confidence and trust. Where there are multiple Lead professionals we suggest that they network to share appropriate information. For example, a child under five with health needs may well have a Health Visitor as a Lead professional, their eight year old sister with multiple needs may have a Children s Fund worker as their Lead Professional and their fourteen year old brother who has attendance and behaviour difficulties Lead Professional may be an Education Welfare Officer. In this scenario the Health Visitor, Children s Fund worker and EWO would need to share information about issues that are common to all siblings in the family and ideally coordinate reviews. 7

10 The CAF Coordinator would be able to tell you if our records show that more than one child in the same family has a Common Assessment to support Lead professionals to stay in touch. (Please note that our ability to do this will be dependent on children having the same surname and primary residency). Q29. How does CAF link to adult services? Adult services may be the best placed professionals to see the emerging needs of a vulnerable child/young person e.g. a housing officer may see the living conditions of a child before anybody else. We particularly need adult services colleagues working with vulnerable adults with children in the household to liaise with children services colleagues so they can initiate a Common Assessment if it is appropriate. The CAF is also an excellent tool to support transition processes or development of care plans from children s services to adult services. Q30. How is information kept confidential? Common Assessment information should normally be held and shared only with the informed consent of the child or young person, or their parent or carer. The exception would be if the information gathered led to a concern that the child was suffering from or at risk of significant harm. Q31. How does a Common Assessment fit in when a child/young person is receiving a service from another borough? CAF is a national initiative; all areas will be using CAF. Local Authorities may be at different stages in their implementation of CAF, but this shouldn t stop you undertaking the Assessment. The same Common Assessment Framework Form and process is being used by Richmond s neighbouring boroughs and the South West London area sharing information with these areas follows exactly the same process we use in Richmond. If you have any difficulties sharing information with another Local Authority please contact your Designated Officer or the CAF Coordinator. Q32. What happens if different practitioners don t agree on what constitutes an appropriate response to support a child/young person or who needs to do what? CAF is all about seeking the best interests of the child/young person at all times. Inevitably there will be differences of opinion between practitioners; every practitioner has a responsibility to try and resolve concerns or miscommunications and the Lead Professional will have a particularly pivotal role. In the eventuality of an agreement not being reached the Lead Professional and involved parties need to escalate to their line mangers for support in resolution in the first instance. The CAF Coordinator will also endeavour to escalate and resolve. Q33. What is informed consent? To give informed consent a young person/parent/carer needs to understand what they re agreeing to including in the Common Assessment, what the CAF process involves, what will happen to their information and that they can withdraw their consent at anytime. Consent needs to be sought in writing using the consent box on the Common Assessment Framework Form. Practitioners can make sure that consent is given on an informed basis by explaining: What information is to be shared? Who it is to be shared with? 8

11 What is the purpose of sharing it? You need to inform parent/carers how practitioners will manage the information within their own agency. Practitioners should make clear what rights the young person/parent/carer has to limit the type of information that can be shared and the agencies it can be shared with. The young person/parent/carer must also be informed about their right to access their records. Please read Richmond s Information Sharing Guidance for more in-depth information about this subject. Q34. What do I do if somebody withdraws consent? If somebody withdraws consent to share information you need to notify other partners and the CAF Coordinator immediately and stop information exchange. You should still retain records of any communication that has taken place. It is likely that the initial agency will be able to continue providing a service without sharing information. We recommend that you ask for the original service user who provided consent to confirm their withdrawal of consent in writing. If this is not possible, note the time and date of the conversation on file and notify the CAF Coordinator that the CAF has been closed. Note: Where there is a legal obligation to share or it is in the person s best / vital interests to continue sharing, their consent is not required. Q35. Who needs to sign the Common Assessment Framework Form? The consent box in the Common Assessment Framework Form should be signed by whoever has given consent and the Lead Professional as a minimum. They are signing to agree the goals and actions that have resulted from the Assessment. It is not necessary for everyone involved in a CAF to sign the form. Q36. When can I proceed without consent? Sharing information without consent may be necessary and appropriate under some circumstances, these include: When a child is believed to be at risk of significant harm When the public interest in safeguarding the child s welfare overrides the need to keep the information confidential For the prevention, detection or prosecution of serious crime When instructed to do so by a court When there is a legal obligation to do so It is in their vital interests to do so Please read the Information sharing - guidance for managers and practitionersf or more indepth information about this subject. Q37. Where does ContactPoint fit into this picture? ContactPoint will provide a tool to help practitioners identify which other practitioners are working with the child. Like CAF, it is a tool to improve integrated working between agencies. ContactPoint will record that a Common Assessment has been completed, when it was completed and who it was completed by. 9

12 Q38. Will information from the Common Assessment be held in ContactPoint? No, the detail of Assessments will not be held in ContactPoint. Practitioners can contact the CAF Coordinator to find out if a Common Assessment exists. They will then need to contact the other practitioner(s) and, with the consent of the child, young person or family, access the Common Assessment if appropriate. Q39. Sensitive services and CAF enquiries The CAF coordinator will log all CAF queries on a queries database. This way, when a practitioner calls to find out if a child or young person has a common assessment, the CAF coordinator can: Advice who is the Lead Professional and his or her contact number if a CAF exist; or Advice if someone else has enquired about the child or young person although a CAF doesn t exist yet. Exceptions apply for sensitive services i.e. drugs and alcohol, sexual health, mental health: If a sensitive service contacts the CAF coordinator to find out if a common assessment exists and one doesn t but there has been an enquiry from a universal service, the CAF coordinator will advice who has also enquired about that child; However, if a universal service calls the CAF coordinator to find out if a common assessment exists and one doesn t but there has been an enquiry from a sensitive service, the CAF coordinator will contact the sensitive service and ask them to get in touch with the universal service ASAP. Practitioners don t need consent to find out from the CAF coordinator if a common assessment exists, since no sensitive information will be disclosed. 10