What is The Common Assessment Framework (CAF)?
CAF provides a single, shared, inter-agency assessment tool to enable those working with a child or family to gain a holistic view of support needs. CAF is particularly targeted at understanding needs at an early stage before problems become entrenched. CAF can therefore be used across all services currently accessing the system. In Slough, the electronic Common Assessment Framework (eCAF) went 'live' on 1st October 2008. This is a web based application designed by LiquidLogic. Many practitioners have been trained across health, education and children's services, and the training programme is ongoing – more services and teams are becoming system users every month.
Why use CAF?
It is not always easy to know what to do when concerns are raised about a child or young person (CYP). It may not be clear what the issue is – and even if it is reasonably clear, support provided by universal services may not be enough to move things forward. Parents and/or professionals may feel unsure about which other services would be best placed to help. For more help with explaining CAF to CYP and their families, please see
The Common Assessment Framework in Slough – A Guide for Parents.
A common assessment can help practitioners work with the CYP and their family to identify needs. It provides a structure for recording the information that you gather from conversation with them, from school records or from other professionals, and for identifying what actions need to be taken to address the recognised needs.
It will also help to get other services involved, because they will recognise that concerns are based on evidence. Other services using CAF will recognise and expect an assessment in this format and this helps provide greater information sharing where appropriate. For more guidance, see
eCAF Process Chart.
When to start the CAF
You can do a common assessment at any time if you are worried about a child or young person's progress towards the five Every Child Matters (ECM) outcomes without additional services. Please refer to the
ECM Agenda explained for more information. For example, you might be worried about a child or young person’s health, development, welfare, behaviour, progress in learning or any other aspect of their well-being.
Request for Involvement
There may be times when you know a child is need of extra support, but you are unsure whether a CAF is actually necessary. If this is the case, you can request an initial assessment from another practitioner by completing the
Request for Involvement Form. This will help you to gather more information and decide what future support is needed.
If it is decided that no further involvement is necessary, you do not need to start a CAF. However, if from the initial assessment it becomes clear that the CYP requires ongoing support, the referrer will need to start a CAF.
These are the Slough criteria for starting a CAF:
All children meeting any one of the following criteria will undergo a CAF assessment
1.Where ongoing targeted (Tier 2) support or intervention is needed, after assessment and discussion with professional/s and parents, ie
a Where there are concerns (at least at Tier 2 level, see ‘Windscreen’ diagram) about outcomes for the child across at least two of the Every Child Matters outcomes (health, safety, enjoying and achieving, positive contribution and economic well-being).
b Where there is concern under only one Every Child Matters outcome area, but the underlying causes of poor outcomes are unclear, or current interventions strategies are clearly not working to improve outcomes.
2.Where needs are likely to lead to a range of agencies having to become involved.
If it is unclear whether or not a CAF is necessary, there should always be a discussion, for example at a Team Around the Child meeting (
see eCAF and the Team Around the Child). This could take the form of a MAM (Multi Agency Meeting) in school, a care plan meeting, a telephone conversation, etc, to decide on the best way forward. Parents or carers (or young people of the age and understanding to make their own decisions) must consent to the CAF being carried out (
see A Guide for Parents).
For more information on when to start an eCAF, please refer to the
Slough eCAF Protocol or the
Guide for Practitioners.
Child Protection
An existing CAF can be used to support a referral to Social Care where there are concerns about significant harm under Section 47 of the Children Act 1989. However, if no CAF exists, a CAF should not be started where such concerns exist; the established and published Local Safeguarding Children’s Board procedures should be used.
Also see the national guidance 'What to do if you think a child is being abused' (DfES 2007)
More information
