Local Change Programme

As no single agency can be responsible for meeting the needs of all children and families, a range of tools are being developed which focus on enabling and encouraging professionals to work in partnership, to share information and to adopt common processes to deliver frontline services.

These include:

• The adoption of a Common Assessment Framework (CAF): this is a common process for initial assessment to identify more accurately and efficiently the additional needs of children and young people at risk of poor outcomes. It will reduce duplication of assessment, produce a shared language across agencies and improve referral between agencies.
• Better Information Sharing (IS) between professionals with the development of national standards for information sharing across local children’s services, with clear guidance being made available for practitioners covering health, education, social care and youth offending.
• Developing ContactPoint this is an information sharing index to support better communication among practitioners across education, health, social care and youth offending. ContactPoint will allow practitioners to contact one another more easily and quickly, so they can share information about children and young people who need services or about whose welfare they are concerned.
• Introducing an Integrated Children’s Systems (ICS) to improve outcomes for children in need.  The ICS is a framework for effective electronic case record systems for children’s social care that will support practitioners and managers in undertaking the key tasks of assessment, planning, intervention and review. ICS will allow for a common approach that is based on an understanding of children’s development needs in the context of parental capacity and wider environmental factors and will help with the recording, retrieval and understanding of significant information.
• By adopting the combination of these common approaches professionals will be able to work together to deliver services that are, coordinated and built around the needs of children and young people in Lincolnshire, securing real improvements in their life outcomes. (See How ICS, CAF and ContactPoint fit Together)