Integrated Working

What is Integrated Working?

Integrated working is where organisations supporting children, young people and families work together effectively to put the child or young person at the centre of activities and processes in order to meet their needs and improve their lives. By combining their professional expertise, knowledge and skills, and involving the child or young person and family throughout, practitioners can identify needs earlier, deliver a co-ordinated package of support that is centred on the child or young person, and help secure better outcomes for them.

Integrated working is achieved through collaboration and co-ordination at all levels, across all services, in both single- and multi-agency settings. It requires clear and strong leadership and management and is facilitated by the adoption of common service delivery models, tools and processes.

Some recent research by the Local Authorities Research Consortium provides an assessment of the progress that has been made in implementing the integrated working approach across the country.

Integrated Processes

Integrated processes drive multi-agency working and support the delivery of integrated frontline services. The key integrated processes include:

Leading Integrated Working - the Every Child Matters agenda challenges leaders and managers to build integrated teams that put the child and family at the heart of all that they do. Further guidance is available in the report Championing Children.

Information Sharing - appropriate information sharing underpins all integrated processes. Cross-government guidance has been developed for all practitioners and managers who work with children, young people and families to ensure they understand when, why and how they should share information. There is also additional guidance on the relevant legal issues.

Common Assessment Framework (CAF) - a tool and process for the initial assessment to identify more efficiently the additional needs of children and young people at risk of poor outcomes. The CAF reduces duplication of assessment, encourages a shared language across agencies and improves referrals between agencies. Some support tools for the CAF are also available.

Lead Professional - the practitioner who takes a lead role to ensure that frontline services are co-ordinated, coherent and achieving intended outcomes (see also the Lead Practitioner Guide).

ContactPoint - an online contacts list for authorised professionals who work with children and young people. It provides them with a quick way to find out who else is working with the same child or young person, making it easier for them to work as a team and deliver more co-ordinated support (see also the ContactPoint Q&A document).

Common Core - the basic skills and knowledge needed by all people (including volunteers) whose work brings them into regular contact with children and young people. There are six key areas of the common core, including ‘effective communication and engagement', ‘safeguarding' and ‘multi-agency working'.

Safeguarding - when professionals work together in an integrated way, they put the child at the centre of all activities to help identify their holistic needs earlier to improve their life outcomes. Safeguarding is an important part of this continuum, where prevention and early intervention can help children and families get back on track and avoid problems turning into a crisis.