If you work with children and young people in a targeted specialist service you may receive a Common Assessment from another agency asking for your help.

If you receive a completed CAF, you should discuss the common assessment with the practitioner who completed it to enable you to pool your knowledge and expertise. You can also contact the Locality Manager who covers the location where the child/young person lives (see the link on the right hand side for contact details).

If you do not need to complete a CAF yourself but are expecting to receive CAFs from other practitioners you should complete CAF awareness training. This can be done through the CAF e-learning module – a handy online training course to give you an overview of CAF. You must also attend Information Sharing training (follow the links on the left hand side for both).

If you are responsible for undertaking specialist assessments, you should use the common assessment to inform your own specialist assessment. This should save the child/young person/parent repeating themselves unnecessarily, however, it will be important to check that the information is accurate and up-to-date.

If you have any queries regarding the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) rollout, please contact Lynsey Collen on 01223 699060 or email 
lynsey.collen@cambridgeshire.gov.uk