CAF - duplicated post from Jobs and Education

[Barmaid]

Anyone have any direct experience or good guidelines on the CAF process please?

Is the form meant to be used by a student social worker to make unsupported allegations about one parent who is then denied a role in the process or a right of reply?

Apologies for duplicate post, I thought Education was the appropriate place but it has been suggested that Family might be more appropriate.

[China Doll]

Common Assessment Framework? That's just a form used to refer to social services, what sort of sort of social worker are they? It can also be used by a health visitor for example to refer a child to speech and language or tap in to other community services so it's not exclusively used just as a referral to social services. When it is sent to social services with child protection concerns it is only the beginning of the assessment and I'm not aware that any definitive action is ever take souly on the referral. They can also be sent just for information purposes - eg hospital visits for a child who is on the child protection registrar but where the visit is entirely appropriate.

I have a social worker who works on the wards and she can sent a CAF referral to a social services department so I think your answer is probably yes, they could have sent the referral detailing their concerns but how social services acted on this referral might have nothing to do with them.

Is that even remotely helpful?

[chelle7272]

it's basically a request for services to address a need. It is intended to engage all relevant agencies in the decisonmaking to ensure a co-ordinated approach.
http://www.education....68957/the-caf-process

[saxy_jag]

I used to temp in a social services department when the CAF was first introduced and had a lot of input into the form designs and the typing up of the paperwork. It came on the back of, among other things, the Victoria Clambier(sp?) case, where a serious breakdown in communication between social workers played a major part in the girl's death. CAF is a means by which all social workers involved with a client, whatever department/organisation/authority, can use the same set of criteria to assess the needs of that client. As such, a student social worker would be expected to learn how to use it - usually under the supervision of a qualified worker/mentor or senior practitioner.

What a worker puts on the CAF form, be they student or qualified, must be an objective and truthful account of what they have observed. If the client (or the client's representative) believes that to be wrong, then they must take up the matter with the worker's/student's senior or a legal adviser as appropriate.

[Barmaid]

Thanks all - I found the professional guidance online, read it, applied it and the SW in question has now had to amend her unhelpful and inflammatory approach - indeed she is no longer "Lead Professional".

[saxy_jag]

Successful outcome then, Barmaid. I'm pleased. It's one of the reasons CAF was put into place and it's good to see the system working as it should.

[Barmaid]

Shame it took me reading the Guidance for Professionals for it to become a balanced, collaberative and fair approach rather than her being rather judgemental and refusing to budge and indeed demonising one parent. I do feel a little sorry for some parents who might not have the resources to challenge processes by SWs when they get it wrong. But as you say, a good outcome.