What is a CAF

The CAF is completed at any time a practitioner from any agency that has contact with a child or young person believes that the child will not progress towards the five ECM priority outcomes without additional services and support. By identifying these children early, support can be offered before things reach crisis requiring more specialist and often costly services or interventions (tier 3 /4 ). It remains that the CAF commences at tier 2.

The CAF still can only be undertaken when the child/young person and/or parent or carer agrees and this point is raised at the CAF training and remains contentious for some practitioners.

In Summary, the CAF is not a referral form; however it provides information and an assessment of need which directs the child and family to the most appropriate service. The CAF promotes a holistic approach to meeting children’s needs and discourages the notion that, once a referral to a service is made, the referrer’s responsibility ceases. The CAF aims to further enable good practice, where support is brought together around the family to provide a coordinated response to assessed need.

The CAF is not about just identifying needs then passing it on. It is expected that, now the CAF process is embedded on the Island, all requests for a service, unless of a safeguarding nature, will be accompanied by a common assessment.

Identifying a Lead Professional will be undertaken at the CAF Panel and expectation is that the CAF completer will attend the CAF panel to present the case