what is cafs?

[sky]

i had a meeting at my sons school this week with the headmaster and camhs and he filled out a cafs formas my son is having problems at school . can anybody tell me what this is please and the implications.he is a sweetie at home but school cant seem to get to grips with his needs . thanks

[Kathryn]

Hi Sky,

 

Do you mean a CAF?

 

It stands for Common Assessment Framework and is a way of getting all the services together to share information and discuss what support a child needs. It's a useful tool if lots of different agencies have been involved in supporting a child. That's the theory anyway, although there's no guarantee a child will actually get the support in the end!

 

Here's the parents' information leaflet from Plymouth (which I assume is your council) which should explain a bit more.

 

http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/parents_information_leaflet.pdf

 

I hope it turns out to be a positive move in your son's case.

 

K x

[zeldasmum]

We did a CAF back in July when the realisation that all his quirks and emotional probs were a sign of "Something" rather than just him.

 

It takes a detailed history from pregnancy onwards. From the info you give the next actions to be taken are recorded specifying who will do this. Such as School, SALT or paed etc.

 

hope htis helps, this is only my experiance of CAF.

[sky]

thank you so much _ i have been so worried abouthim at school recently _ hopefully it will help but not holding my breath as they cant seem to get their heads around him :[

[justine1]

Hi

 

Just to add to the above,CAF was introduced after the Victoria Climbe case,its a way for all "agencies"(Social,education and health) to work from the same page so to speak.

 

I was nervous about mine as I had been told it can mean social services will be involved,but this was not the case.One thing I will say is that you need to be aware that everything is kept on a "permanent" record,I made sure I did'nt give too much additionl info just the basics.

 

Explained in great deal what my son was like as a baby,how he is now and how I feel he is different and what I feel he needs.

 

To be honest I m not sure if it did mke a difference as the ed psych and outreach had been called in prior to us filling it in,though when the ed psych did come in she did say it is now protocol.

[sky]

thanks for that _ yes i was under the impression that i was having a meeting with camhs at the school _but the headmaster used the meeting to fill in the caf form which i had no warning of.feeling quite cross at the moment as i feel (rightly or wrongly)that the schools "disciplines" have resulted in my usually happy son regressing to an anxious and occasionally aggressive boy_.so glad to have him home for a week where he can be "himself" again .