CAF & eCAF

What is CAF?

The CAF is a shared assessment tool for use across all children's services and all local areas in England. 

What does the CAF consist of?

1. A pre-assessment checklist to help practitioners decide who would benefit from a common assessment.
2. A three-step process (prepare, discuss, deliver) for undertaking a common assessment, to help practitioners gather and understand information about the needs and strengths of the child.  This will be based on discussions with the child, their family and other practitioners as appropriate.
3. A standard form to help practitioners record, and, where appropriate, share with others, the findings from the assessment.  This will be done in terms that are helpful when working with the family to find a response to unmet needs. 

The CAF will:

• Promote earlier intervention where additional needs are observed long before crisis point is reached;
• Reduce the number and duration of different assessment processes that children and young people need to undergo;
• Improve the quality and consistency of referrals between agencies by making them more evidence based;
• Provide evidence to facilitate requests to involve other agencies, reducing unnecessary referrals and enabling specialist services to focus their resources where they are most needed;
• Help embed a common language about the needs of children and young people;
• Improve information sharing by enabling information to follow the child or young person;
• Promote the appropriate sharing of information where consent is given.

The aim of the CAF is that it will be used as an early identification tool for practitioners within services in Slough to identify what steps need to be taken to address concerns about a child or young person.

What is eCAF?

eCAF is the e-enablement of the CAF

• eCAF will allow a practitioner to electronically create, store and share a CAF Form securely.
• eCAF will give authorised, trained practitioners from different sectors secure access to key information concerning the assessment.  This will allow them to plan, monitor and review a co-ordinated approach to the delivery of the most appropriate services. 

The benefits of a national eCAF system:

• Promotes multi-agency working and early interventions
• Facilitates a consistent approach for all practitioners
• Facilitates the effective and efficient delivery of a co-ordinated service
• Creates a holistic view of a child's needs
• Reduces the need for multiple assessments
• Increases the transparency of work performed by other agencies

Who will have access to the national eCAF system?

Access to the national eCAF system will only be given to authorised users who have undergone the appropriate checks including those provided by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB). 

Practitioners will only be given access to the common assessment information of the child or young person that they are working with, and only with the informed and explicit consent of the child or young person (or the parent/carer where this is appropriate).