Unit 1 D2

Amy Holihan CACHE Level 3 Unit 1 D2

“Multi Agency working brings together practitioners from different sectors and professions to provide an integrated way of working to support children, young people and families.”
(www.education.gov.uk 18.10.2021)
Multi Agency Teams are made up of professionals who are brought into the childcare setting for a variety of different reasons. They ensure that all children, young people and families who need additional support have exactly the right professionals they need in order to support them. A Multi Agency Team could involve anyone who’s voluntary or job puts them in contact with children, young people or families. Other professionals who may work as part of a Multi-Agency Team are social workers, educational psychologists, health visitors and paediatric dieticians. They help children and young people who may be suffering from special needs, learning in difficulties or behavioural difficulties they assess these children and give them individual support and together with their families. The Multi Agency Team approach has many benefits such as there is better support for the parents and easier to meet every child and families individual needs and to address them more appropriately and children seeing professionals around then working together as a team. Communication between different services and confidentiality is crucial when working in a multi-agency team to ensure that all children and families get the support they need and their rights are never breached.
“The CAF should be offered to children who have additional needs to those being met by universal services unless a child is presenting a need it is unlikely the CAF will be offered. The practitioner assesses needs by using the CAF.”
(www.education.gov.uk 18.10.2012)
The common Assessment Framework is to be used by all professionals who are in contact with children young people and their families. It is used to help practitioners identify a child’s need and offer them extra support before it reaches crisis point and to ensure important needs of children are not overlooked. Information is also shared between other practitioners so that parents only have to tell one professional information about their child. Parents also get to see the assessment information and get to voice their views and opinions with practitioners. Families play a big part when developing an action plan for meeting all children’s additional needs and consent must also be given by the parents.