Family Common Assessment Team

‘There is a vital role for professionals working in universal services – health, education, police and early years – to identify the early signs of abuse and neglect and to work together to deliver coordinated services to children and families.

All assessments are now Family CAF and potentially address identified needs of as many members of the family as necessary after discussion with them

Can address the needs of just one child in the family if there are no other identified concerns or can include one or both parents and some or all of the children

BUTThere must always be at least one child

The purpose of the common and shared assessment is to:

1. Identify children and families who have unmet needs which require help from more than one agency;

2. Support integrated working and share relevant information between professionals; 3. Identify the kinds of services to be provided by which agencies and within what

timescales and;4. Deliver a coordinated, multi-agency service response to children and their families

based on the findings from the assessment.

Working Together – Consultation Document 2012

fCAF & Early Intervention

Engage the Family

Engage the Professionals

Meet the Families Needs

Journey of the Child/Family

15 working days 15 working days

Organising the 1st ISP meeting

• fCAF website www.birmingham.gov.uk/caf• The fCAF website is a great source of support and

information for practitioners including :• On line training modules and booking facilities for 1day

fCAF training courses • All the latest fCAF forms a practitioner could ever want • An Invite letter and standard ISP agenda. • Access to additional courses to support the prevent

programme • And a whole host more! • The website is regularly updated and useful for all

practitioners not just those new to the fCAF process.

Support for practitioners

• Initially practitioners should seek support from within their organisations. Should this not be sufficient

• Flexible support is available to practitioners. • This could be telephone support from the central

office or community support from the 4 Area fCAF coordinators based in community hubs.

Support for practitioners 2

• Quality Assurance .– 20 % of all assessments raised are

Quality assured and findings are reported to the Local Safeguarding Board and individual organisations.

• Supports organisations to develop ongoing assessment skills.

• Support local training needs.

Support for practitioners 3