Proposed structure for the Children and Young People's Workforce ...

2010- Workforce Strategy Draft• Enable services to be planned and delivered jointly – across the Children and YoungPeople’s Trust partners – at a locality level.• Identify opportunities for shared workforce developments.• Strengthen systems for multi-agency working at a locality level, e.g. common assessmentand information sharing.The integrated locality model supports the implementation of integrated working processes andarrangements. The development of locality based teams around children, young people andfamilies, supported by the Common Assessment Framework, ContactPoint and Lead Professional,will deliver integrated services at the local level.8.3 Common Assessment Framework (CAF)The Common Assessment Framework was developed by the Department of Children, Schoolsand Families to enable practitioners across agencies to use a common approach and language toassess the wide variety of needs of children and young people.The CAF project started in Southampton during 2006 and has taken time to embed. However,since 2009 the implementation of the common assessment model has progressed well.Over 800 staff have been trained in the CAF awareness and common assessment completionsince 2008.8.4 ContactPointThe purpose of ContactPoint is to help improve services to children and young people with astrong emphasis on early intervention and prevention. Currently practitioners can spend time tryingto find out who else is working with the same child or unknowingly duplicate work that is alreadybeing carried out by another service. ContactPoint has been designed to support the processesfollowed by those who work with children and young people.ContactPoint is a database available to authorised staff which contains basic information for allchildren living in England up to their 18th birthday: name, address, gender, date of birth, anidentifying number and name and contact details for parents or carers, education setting, GPpractice and other services working with the child. There is a facility to indicate if a practitioner isthe Lead Professional for a child and/or if they have completed a common assessment.In order to access ContactPoint, each organisation must be separately accredited; practitionersthen attend a ½ day training session. Accreditation for agencies is happening across the city.Training in some agencies is complete with more being planned over the coming months.8.5 Lead professionalThe lead professional is the single point of contact for families and other professionals. The leadprofessional is responsible for coordinating the interventions of the professionals providing supportto children, young people and families.In order to be eligible to be a lead professional in Southampton the following criteria must be met:• Appointment based on the predominant needs of the child/young person and parents andrelevance to the improving their outcomes.• Working in services or settings which Southampton can have confidence will be able toprovide:Version 2.6 12