CAF - The lead Professional role

In Warwickshire the Lead Professional is identified at the end of the first Family Support Meeting (FSM).

The concept of Lead Professional has been introduced by government to ensure effective co-ordination of multi-agency services to children and young people with additional needs at an early stage of intervention.

The Lead Professional (LP) in the CAF process can be any practitioner from the voluntary or statutory sector who is working with the young person or family and has a positive working relationship with them.

The LP acts as a point of contact for the young person, family and other practitioners. The LP monitors the action plan to ensure actions are followed through.

However, the LP is not responsible for ensuring other agencies fulfil the actions and responsibilities that they have undertaken. The LP is only responsible to her/his own agency.

However, the LP is able to raise any issues about fulfilling the action plan including non-engagement of other agencies by contacting the local CAF Officer, who will address the issues as appropriate.

In practice, the LP has not proved as onerous or time-consuming as many practitioners first feared. In Warwickshire, no single practitioner is expected to undertake LP responsibilities for more than 2 cases at any one time. However, this does not prevent practitioners from initiating CAFs for other children/young people as necessary.

What is the role of the CAF Officers?

CAF Officers provide training, support and information to practitioners using the CAF. They offer advice, information and guidance about whether or not it is appropriate to address needs via CAF.

They help facilitate Family Support Meetings and support Lead Professionals.

Feedback to CAF Officers contributes to the ongoing evaluation of EIN to ensure optimum efficiency. It registers positive feedback about services to young people and families; and facilitates the identification of trends and gaps in services and the monitoring of problems with the system.

For further information, guidance and useful documents visit the Common Assessment Framework page