Transcript History - Home - Change for Children

CAF and Lead Professional
in Derby
Justine Gibling CAF/LP Project Manager
What we are doing?
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History of CAF in Derby.
Context of the CAF project.
The developments in the project.
Our learning.
• What still needs to be done.
History
• Pilot in the Rosehill area of the City 2002 2004
• Culturally diverse
• Sure Start area
• Multi-agency steering Group
• Building on lessons learned in North Lincs –
reporting better outcomes for families
Funding
• Initial funding from NRF 2002 – 2004 for a
Project Manager & Admin support
• Received further funding 2004 – 2006 for
Project Manager, 2 x Project Workers &
Admin support
• Funding is now agreed until end March 2008
Early lessons
• Concept during the pilot was generally well received.
• Different issues for different groups.
• Developed shared indicators of need across a range
of agencies.
• Positive experience of achieving holistic information
to inform judgements and decisions/ Evidenced
based referrals.
• Involvement of local parents/carers/communities was
vital and began to dispel myths about some services,
e.g social care and the role of social workers
City wide roll out
• Following the pilot the Children & Young
Peoples Strategic Partnership requested and
supported City wide roll out (2004)
• Fits with the wider ICS/Change for Children
agenda
• CAF became part of the ICS team
• Established links with ISA Project
• Developed an Implementation Strategy
• Developed the role of the ‘CAF Champion’
Strategic Support
• CAF Project sits within the Performance and
Commissioning division of the Children and
Young People’s Department
• The project is under the Partnership,
Performance & Participation element with
close links to the Assessment &
Commissioning element
CAF/Lead Professional:
Derby Model
TYS pathfinder
Implementation Strategy
• 3 strands to the Implementation Strategy
1. Briefing sessions to managers
2. Training using the DfES materials
3. Training for Parents
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This also closely supports the swift &
Easy element of one of the core offers
for extended services in schools
Briefings to Managers and
Communities
• Briefings across the City were given (and continue to
be given) to groups of managers including: Health,
Social Services, The Voluntary Sector, Youth Service,
Youth Offending Service, Comm Paeds, Midwives,
Sure Start Programme managers, Housing, Refuge
services, Special educational Needs Service
• Plus briefings to Specialist Services to discuss how
CAF fits into specialist Assessments
DfES Training
• The project uses the materials produced by
the DfES and has adapted them to reflect
local practice and procedures
Training for Parents
• 12 week training course developed during the pilot:
‘Common Assessment framework and Safeguarding
Children’
• Accredited through OCN local to Derby
• Examines all aspects of the Common Assessment
Framework, plus exercises on Values & Judgements,
local services, the Law, child development and
safeguarding issues
External evaluation
• External evaluation commissioned from
Lancaster University to explore the
effectiveness of the training for parents as a
way of embedding CAF into communities
• Positive findings
• Other LA’s requesting to buy the training
manual
• 15 courses delivered so far across the city
Lancaster University Evaluation
How parents and professionals develop a common
language for helping children and families
“Towards the end of the course the group seems to
have developed and stabilised the common language
of thinking in terms of support, and focussing on the
child's needs in order to know what support may be
given”
“The idea of the family having a choice about the
assessment and owning a copy of the material is
welcomed. This idea may fit well into the common
language of support instead of risk prevention”
CAF Champions
• Executive group were asked to nominate
Champions within their agencies to be
responsible for implementation issues across
their service
• Began by agreeing the role of the CAF
Champion
• Bi-monthly meetings
Our learning
• Good strategic management and cross agency support
• Partnership engagement and ownership of the Common
Assessment Framework
• The process of engaging managers through briefing sessions
and awareness raising
• Good quality training for practitioners
• The formulation of a CAF Champion group agreed at the
Strategic Executive Group
• The beginnings of systems and processes to enable the
strategy
• Two way communication between leaders and frontline staff
• Practitioners have given positive evaluations of the CAF training
• The training course for parents & accredited learning
Our learning
• CAF can be used to identify service gaps in localities
– a powerful Commissioning tool.
• CAF identifies the positives
• Dedicated team to offer needs led support following
training and with individual case by case scenarios.
• Project team to act as a conduit between services.
• Goodwill across our partnership and those who see
what a difference this agenda makes for children and
young people.
Lead Professional Trailblazer
• Within a local Sure Start/Children’s Centre to
implement the role of the Lead Professional
• Multi-agency support
• Identify training and support needs
• Management issues
• Escalation and disputes
• Learn lessons to contribute to develop locality based
working
• Community evaluation/parent researchers
Our learning
• Support network to discuss the developing role was
vital
• Practical training: minute taking, chairing meetings
• People knew why they needed to attend the meeting
• Conflict resolution and empowerment
issues/perceived status within the group
• Achieving outcomes for children and young people
• Positive evaluation
Challenges
• Capacity in the CAF project to support the
implementation (training and briefings etc)
• Coordinated implementation plan.
• Competing priorities/demands.
• Monitoring information.
• Middle managers – getting on with the day job.
• Some services not attending meetings.
• Protocols and gaps.
• Time element – what did we do before?
• Waiting for the right time, for everything to be in
place!
Future Developments
• Re-configure the project to reflect locality
working
• Integrated process coordinators in each
locality to support the developments of
Integrated Processes and Integrated
Frontline delivery
• Embed CAF and the role of the Lead
Professional
Thank you!