The Common Assessment Framework is a nationally standard approach to conducting an assessment of the needs of a child or young person and deciding how those needs should be met. It has been developed for use by practitioners in all agencies so that they can communicate and work more effectively together. It will support earlier intervention by providing a tool to enable practitioners in universal, as well as targeted or specialist services, to assess needs at an early stage. It aims to rationalise, over time, existing assessments by providing the main method whereby needs are assessed by agencies, eventually replacing all or part of many existing assessments. The CAF has been designed so that, with the appropriate training, practitioners of all professional backgrounds will be able to complete it.
The CAF will help practitioners undertake an initial holistic assessment of a child or young person's needs. It will help them determine the level of need and identify an appropriate response. Where the assessment indicates that the child has urgent or complex needs, requiring specialist assessment and intervention, the common assessment information will feed into the specialist assessment process.
Oldham Council has produced the following pocket-sized guides to help practitioners work with the common assessment framework:
For more information, please contact Gerard Gudgion, Common Assessment Framework Co-ordinator: CAF@oldham.gov.uk