Mission Statement:
"Local joined up services focused on prevention".
This is the “Big Idea” of the Bradford Children’s Trust, the Council and its partners in the Bradford Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) 2009-2012.
To learn about the national Integrated Working agenda, please see the Every Child Matters Website.
To read the Bradford Children and Young People’s Plan, see below:
Children & Young People's Plan 2009 to 2012 (1550kb)
Integrated Working News
Current and archived issues
Integrated Working
Integrated working is everyone supporting children and young people - working together effectively to meet the needs of individual children and improve their lives.
This involves changes to the current practice culture across the children's workforce, to provide services that make more sense to the parents, children and young people using them. Change is required in all agencies at every level of organisation management and practice.
The Children Act 2004 clearly sets out the integrated children's services agenda requiring agencies to work much closer within local communities to ensure a more seamless provision of service to children, young people and their families.
In our district, the Bradford Children’s Trust is accountable for Children’s Services and how these services are delivered.
The Bradford Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) 2009-2012 sets out how services for children and young people will be coordinated to deliver the “Big Idea” of local joined-up services focused on prevention and built around their needs.
Without any professional and service specific boundaries, the plan integrates delivery of services for children and their families in Constituency Areas, integrated at the point of delivery with no duplication of service.
This requires practitioners to use common approaches and processes and share information.
Basic elements that enable integrated working:
- Information Sharing
- The Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
- Lead Practitioner
- Team Around the Child
- Localities
- Information Sharing
Sharing the right information at the right time in the right way saves time and achieves better outcomes for children, as well as agencies. Planning and delivering services in a co-ordinated way requires agencies to securely share personal information about children and young people.
To remove barriers in the way of helpful information sharing between partner organisations and to enable practitioners to share information confidentially and appropriately, the Bradford Children’s Trust has common information sharing standards for all agencies.
The Children Act 2004 requires agencies working with children to improve their information sharing and focuses on early intervention and prevention. It sets the framework for co-operation between Local Authorities and partner agencies, and includes the duty for key agencies to make sure that they safeguard and promote the welfare of children when doing their jobs.
Visit our Information Sharing page to learn more:
Information Sharing
The Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) saves time and makes sense for practitioners, parents, children and young people using services. The CAF is an assessment tool used by all agencies to achieve planned solutions for individual children and young people. It gives agencies and practitioners a shared language and understanding of children’s needs and shared processes. For more information, see our Common Assessment Framework (CAF) page on the navigation bar on the left.
Lead Practitioner
The Lead Practitioner (LP) is the single point of contact and co-ordination for all those involved in the planned actions to support the child or young person. Through the role of the Lead Practitioner, information sharing is improved. A Lead Practitioner could be any of the people delivering planned actions for the child. For more information about the Lead Practitioner, visit the Integrated Working Fact Sheet page at Every Child Matters.
Team Around the Child
The Team Around the Child (TAC) is a multi-agency team of people that work together, with the child/ young person/ family, to action a plan and achieve the planned solutions. This will often include Team Around the Child meetings where everyone, including the child/young person/ family, is present. If practitioners are not able to attend TAC meetings, they should ensure they are involved via written reports or verbal updates through others, as appropriate to individual duties.
Localities
A Locality is the planning area for joining together local service delivery that is focused on prevention. There are 14 Localities in the Bradford district. This model of delivering services uses the 5 parliamentary Constituencies, and within each Constituency Area there are a number of individual Localities.
This is a pragmatic solution built upon collaborative working relationships established by schools and children’s centres clustered together to deliver extended services.
It enables agencies to operate more closely in local communities and to integrate delivery of services to children young people and their families. As far as possible, services for children and young people will be delivered locally, on the basis of Localities.
For more information, please use the links below:
Constituency and Locality Areas for Integrated Working (176kb)
Constituency Area Managers (15kb)
Which Constituency do I live in?
Children’s Workforce Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
Children’s Workforce Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
Reports
CAF/Integrated Processes "Everybody's Business" Conference Report, 8 October 2008, Leeds (1710kb)
eStart
eStart is a software product that holds information on the families, (children and carers) accessing services across Bradford & District. eStart will let you record the activities and events run, organised or supported by a Centre. You will be able to assign individual children, parents, carers and careworkers (staff) to activities/events, enabling you to build up a comprehensive picture of activity and event attendance.
