Welcome to our Partnership Working (CAF) section. This page will tells you about developments to encourage partnership working in Harrow. Please read our draft documents as we are consulting on them now.

For information about our Information Sharing Workshops, please click here

What is happening with CAF?

The information sharing steering group has revised CAF arrangements. As a result we are currently commissioning new training and a database to help support practitioners with this work. Practitioners have supported the pilot and want training to provide them with this work. Practitioners have supported the pilot and want training to provide them with the skills to work in partnership with others. New training will therefore emphasise the realities of partnership working, developing practice, refreshing our knowledge of information, data protection, confidentiality and developing local trusting networks to enable swift efficient engagement by all partners to help each other help children and their parents.

Practitioners, (though not all) have found the national form time consuming and we are therefore revising and simplifying the form to help practitioners identify what relevant information to include. We have involved young people in this work and they have come up with very refreshing ideas and we think practitioners will value this.

On-line training is available now - email us to log on!

Partnership working training is planned for next term: On-line training is a re-requisite for this training

 Partnership Working: The Vision from the steering group:

• Practitioners will have the tools, skills and confidence to engage partners effectively and efficiently.
  
• A clearly defined cohort of children and young people agreed as in need of CAF and derived on our list of vulnerable children outlined in our children and young people's plan.
• Those children will be our target group - and agreed as in need of early intervention and prevention.
• A clear list of resources available for those children
• All partners signed up and ready to collaborate, creating a team around the child who has a CAF
• Lead professionals agreed by concensus, with clear arrangements for professional support
• Parents and children engaged with the process whenever possible
• Practitioners clear about confidentiality rules, consent and information sharing

This is how it would work:

A practitioner identifies a child who fulfills tha agreed criteria for early intervention.

The practitioner contacts the Contact Point team to find out if a CAF has already been started, if not the practitioner begins the CAF process, completing the information already known. If a CAF has already been started, then the practitioner contacts the person who tarted it to discuss next steps.

The form is shared with those partners the practitioners considers may be able to help the child.

Those practitioners complete the form with their knowledge of the child.

When the process is complete, the form will contain the information known to all those professionals - this is the assessment.

The person completing the form is the CAF assessor, but the assessment is a multi-agency process.

The assessment informs the decisions on actions necessary.

The practitioners agree on who does what and by when - the action plan

A lead professional is decided, by practitioners, the parents and where appropriate, the child, and of course, the professional!

The assessment is reviews at agreed intervals, by practitioners involved and coordinated by the lead professional.

When the needs are met, the episode is closed and all involved are informed.

Check out our consultation documents below, comment on our vision and any aspect of partnership working you feel would be useful to include in our training.

Thank you for your continued commitment to partnership working and safeguarding children.