1. Gathering the information to assess need
Any assessment consists of gathering information, analysing the meaning of the information and deciding what actions need to be taken next as a result.
It is important to remember that the Common Assessment is the dialogue that a practitioner has with a child/young person and their parent/carer, it is not a form-filling exercise to be completed mechanistically. The form is the tool for structuring and recording the assessment, it is not the assessment itself. The form is a way of recording the relevant aspects of this dialogue, together with any additional relevant information that comes to light.
Practitioners should gather information by visiting/meeting with the parent, child or young person and with consent liaising with other professionals as appropriate. All information recorded should be shared with the family.
Practitioners should use the Common Assessment form to structure the conversation with the family. It could help to give the young person or the parents their own blank Common Assessment form so they can see what sort of information will be recorded.
Click here for some tips in structuring the conversation with the family and taking into account issues of equality and diversity
The Common Assessment is structured around the five outcomes. The content of the assessment referred to as elements and domains has been developed from the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families.
Practitioners are encouraged to adopt a ‘solution focused’ approach that highlights the family’s strengths as well as needs, and focuses on solutions.
It is important to ensure the information captured during the assessment is sufficiently detailed to allow informed decision making about service delivery.
Common Assessment cannot guarantee services and practitioners should not promise families specific outcomes relating to service delivery.
2. Completing the Common Assessment
The form is self explanatory and provides prompts to help with completion. It is good practice to ensure details of the child or young person’s GP and other practitioners providing universal services are explicit, together with factors that impact upon the child and family. The Quick CAF Guide for practitioners provides additional information on good practice.
The practitioner records the priority needs identified during the assessment using the codes related to the Every Child Matters five outcomes.
The “Identify Change” section includes WHAT changes people want to see, HOW to make this happen, any immediate actions needed and GOALS to illustrate how the family and professionals will know things have improved.
Practitioners should work with the child or their parent to identify what action should be taken including what the child and family will do for themselves. The outcome may recommend one agency, a local service identified through the Family HUB, or a multi agency response to access support.
On completion of the form it is good practice for Practitioners to check that:
The outcome whether single or multi agency is captured.
Responsibilities for carrying out any immediate actions are clear including establishing the date for the next meeting if appropriate
Consent is captured with a signature on relevant documentation, particular regarding the sharing of information with any agencies.
The parents and the child/young person score or rate their experience of the process so far in order to help to measure progress.
Everyone is clear what the practitioner will do after the discussion, what the child/young person or parents could be doing for themselves, how and when the family will get their own copy of the completed Common Assessment once it is recorded on the e-CAF database.
The information captured through Common Assessment does not replace individual agencies own case management. Each agency should continue to record detailed information of their involvement through their own systems.
Most Common Assessments are straightforward. Parents and children / young people want help and welcome efforts to provide this in a co-ordinated way. However, there will be maybe sensitive situations and difficult questions that require practitioners to work with additional tenacity, creativity and sensitivity.
3. Completing the CAF Process
Once the practitioner has completed the Common Assessment discussion the information needs to be captured electronically. Practitioners need to be clear about the process for returning forms to the cafteam who then upload them onto the CAF database. Forms that are incomplete, incorrect or unclear in their information, are then delayed in being processed by the team. This can impact on information being returned to practitioners to be made available for meetings and reviews. A critically important part of the form to complete in as much detail as possible is the “change” section including What change is needed? How can change happen? and “Provide a statement of how things will look at review if good enough progress is made”.
The practitioner should record the completion date of the Common Assessment on the form. This is the date by which all assessment activity was undertaken e.g. visits, phone calls, electronic recording, getting the completed form to the CAF team.
Completion is expected to be no more than 2 weeks from the agreed start date.
Completion of a Common Assessment is not closure of Common Assessment Episode. Practitioners continue to be engaged in delivering services to ensure the agreed goals within the Common Assessment are achieved.
Click here for more hints and tips on the common assessment process.