Contact: Kate Hart Tel: 01962 876261 Email: [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 Hampshire has adopted a Locality Team structure as being the most effective way to develop Early Intervention Services and to align this with the implementation of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and Lead Professional role.

1.2 It was agreed that the implementation should be a phased roll out with the evaluation of Phase One informing the Phase 2 roll out plan.

1.3 The key objective, to have all Locality Teams operational by March 2008, is on track to be achieved and they should all be in place by January 2008.

1.4 However, the evaluation has been more incremental than was originally envisaged, as the experience of each implementation, District by District has been used to inform and guide the next. Each Locality has also sought to achieve their new team at an early a stage as possible, due to the enthusiastic engagement of all agencies.

1.5 There has been a comprehensive training programme which has been evaluated and this has been very positive. The evaluation of outcomes for children is in its very early stages. Some limited feedback is available, which is positive, but this is a substantial area for further work.

1.6 Other further developments will enhance the overall programme, and a key objective to be achieved is the move from multi-disciplinary to multi-agency teams.

1.7 This programme and Hampshire's approach to it was considered carefully by the JAR Inspectors who have commented very positively. They specifically commended the pace of change as being appropriate to a complex programme in a very large authority.

2 Background

2.1 One of the fundamental programmes within the government's Change for Children Agenda is the development of Early Intervention Services. In its most global sense, this development embraces programmes of work that are subject to separate reports such as Children's Centres and Extended Schools. For the purpose of this report, the focus is on the development of Locality Teams, the terminology for what might once have been known as Early Intervention Teams. This is the structure which has been decided upon in Hampshire for the delivery of Early Intervention Services to families.

2.2 The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a key tool within this programme, this being a national tool whereby the needs of children and their families can be assessed at an early stage by a front line worker from a range of agencies or services. The Common Assessment Framework nationally allows for training across a range of disciplines not only through local courses but also through E-Learning, and also promotes continuity when families move.

2.3 The Lead Professional role has been introduced at the same time to ensure the co-ordination of services and professionals, so that any services provided to a child and his family are managed to best effect and so that there is a central point of communication with the family and for all involved professionals.

2.4 A report was presented to the Children and Young People Policy Review Committee on December 12, 2006, outlining the plans for the development of Locality Teams and discussing in some detail their role, function and membership, and also the plans for implementation.

2.5 At that meeting, it was resolved that there should be an update on progress to the Committee, and that this should include a report on the progress of the roll out, an evaluation of Phase One of the programme, and implications for the future development of the service.

3 Context

3.1 The government does not require each authority to have Locality Teams in place, this is a local decision as to the optimum way to provide Early Intervention Services. However, it does require the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) to be in use and to be fully operational across the children's workforce by the end of December 2008. Hampshire set itself the target of having it fully implemented by the end of March 2008.

3.2 The roll out programme in Hampshire has always aligned very directly with the roll out of CAF with the roll out of the Locality Teams, these being the organisational structure that incorporates staff delivering Early Intervention Services. The two developments are therefore completely inter-dependent.

3.3 The Locality Teams are coterminous with District Council boundaries and there is one per District.

3.4 The Locality Team Manager has a key role in liaising with staff from all agencies and services working with children, in receiving and monitoring completed CAF's, and in agreeing or co-ordinating support packages where appropriate. In some cases the Lead Professional will be outside the Locality Team and services will be provided from elsewhere.

3.5 The broad based approach to service co-ordination and delivery is a critical success factor. If everything were done directly by the Locality Team members, volumes would be such that they would quickly find themselves having to turn down requests for service provision. By co-ordinating and supporting a wide range of staff and service providers or Lead Professionals, it will be possible to reach a larger number of families.

3.6 Funding for Locality Teams has come from both the Children's Services Department and from schools block, via the Schools Forum. The Schools Forum funding has allowed for the creation of a Project Team of 5 to steer the implementation and for 3 new Family Support staff to be appointed to each Locality Team. The Schools Forum is being asked to continue this funding into 2008.

3.7 Interagency involvement in the development of these services has been seen as crucial and has been achieved through an overall programme board reporting to the Children and Young People's Partnership Management Board. In addition there is a County Wide Steering Group.

3.8 On a District basis, there is a Locality Steering Group which meets regularly in respect of each Locality Team. All these groups are multi-disciplinary and interagency and are designed to promote both widespread understanding but also engagement in the evolving agenda, which can only be successful as a joint enterprise.

4 Progress to Date

4.1 The Phase One roll out included 5 of Hampshire's 11 Districts and planned to develop Locality Teams and related services operating initially on school clusters in Basingstoke, Rushmoor, Havant, Test Valley and Gosport. In the event, implementing across part of a District while having the advantage of being smaller scale has had its own challenges since it has been potentially confusing for families and workers alike. These teams are now in place and operating and in the case of Gosport is already operating District wide.

4.2 Basingstoke and Rushmoor will be operating on a District wide basis from September 2007, Test Valley will follow (pending further training events) and Havant will operate District wide by the end of 2007.

4.3 The Project Team are currently working on Phase 2 of the roll out, whereby the other 6 Locality Teams become operational, and this requires high levels of engagement with locally based interagency stakeholder groups to promote understanding and to facilitate effective implementation.

4.4 Fareham's team will be operational across the District by the end of December, Winchester and Eastleigh Districts have arrangements in place to be operational within the next 2 to 3 months. New Forest team should be operational in a similar timeframe. Hart and East Hants Districts have plans in place to be operational by January 2008.

4.5 The Project Team was appointed to be in post until the end of March 2008. Their work has increasingly expanded to include not only the new services becoming operational but also supporting and problem solving in the early months of their operation. The Project Team are thus entering their busiest phase with new teams coming on stream, others rolling out District wide and existing teams still needing support. It is planned that from January to March 2008 the Project Team will focus on supporting and bedding in the new services. They will also plan a strategy to sustain the services through `business as usual' approach. The most significant implications will be for ongoing interagency working and for ongoing training.

5 Training

5.1 The implementation of the CAF requires a training programme which goes across the children's workforce in all services and agencies. This is fundamental to the success of the whole programme and the key to ensuring that as many staff as possible are able to engage in assessment work with families and also to take on the Lead Professional role.

5.2 The training programme therefore needs to include Information Sharing and the role of the Lead Professional. Courses are either CAF Awareness for staff who need to understand the process and how the new arrangements will work, or CAF Completer for those actually doing the assessments.

5.3 Much of the training has been on an interagency basis which has promoted mutual understanding, a joint approach to problem solving and improved knowledge of local service availability.

5.4 Between January 2007 and July 2007 almost 1200 staff from a number of agencies attended training courses as part of preparation for the implementation of Locality Teams. An E-Training programme for Hampshire is now available to facilitate access to the training for as wide a range of the workforce as possible.

5.5 Training will continue for the remainder of the project period (until March 2008) but increasingly there will be a need for agencies to take on training responsibility for their staff from the project but training materials are provided and "Train the Trainers' courses are taking place to support this requirement.

6 Implementation as affected by Evaluation

6.1 Although the original plan was to evaluate Phase One and use this to inform the subsequent roll out plan, the experience of implementation has meant that this approach has been modified through 2007 to date.

6.2 The close involvement of a small Project Team has meant that they have been able to learn some lessons on a District by District basis and their approach to planning for implementation has been modified accordingly as they have gone along.

6.3 Some Districts, for example Gosport, have felt able to extend District wide at an early stage and have progressed this will full interagency engagement and support. Others have been keen to extend District wide with the minimum of delay because of the difficulty of running both the old and the new system where implementation was based on a school cluster. Those Districts in the latter stages of the planned roll out have been keen to implement as soon as possible and to bring forward their implementation dates where circumstances allow.

6.4 The overall plan and its timing was assessed by the JAR Inspectors during their visit to Hampshire in May 2007. While some authorities implemented earlier, the JAR team felt that Hampshire had judged the appropriate pace of change well.

6.5 Evaluation of the training programmes delivered has been undertaken and has been informed by feedback forms completed by large numbers of staff who have attended. There have been high levels of satisfaction with attendees being asked specifically about their understanding of the issues and a very large number (over 90%) feeling this had been fully addressed.

6.6 Evaluation of outcomes following the identification of need and delivery of services has been more difficult. While the teams in some Districts are functional and a large number of staff have been trained, the numbers of CAF's that have been completed as a pre-requirement for the arrangements for services to be put in place has been much smaller. At the end of August, central records had knowledge of 66 CAF's having been completed. However, this is consistent with a national picture of new arrangements starting slowly and building up over time.

6.7 Evaluation of satisfaction with the new arrangements by users, and of outcomes, is currently taking place through a range of direct interviews with parents and children. This work is ongoing and not all the data has yet been received. This will also need to be an ongoing process as the programme unfolds and it will be necessary to track outcomes over some years to evaluate the whole approach.

6.8 Feedback to date from these families who have been interviewed has been sought by interviewers independent of the authority. They feel listened to in contrast to their previous experience of feeling "powerless and helpless". They also recognised and were appreciative of plans being put in place to help them. However, not all plans had as yet delivered the services they anticipated, in some cases where schools were involved this was due to the school holiday period. This is being fed back to staff to inform their future approach.

6.9 Further evaluation is planned through the roll out and there has also been academic interest in the programme, with Southampton University looking to undertake a study on the impact of this programme over the period of its full implementation and bedding in.

7 Further Developments

7.1 The plan for the remainder of the roll out will continue to be adjusted, to a minor degree, in respect of timescales. This is to reflect practical requirements, but all the Locality Teams should be in place and operational by the end of January 2008.

7.2 Locality Steering Groups will remain in place for some time but ultimately it is expected the oversight of this work on an interagency basis will be incorporated into the local District based Children and Families Planning Fora, and will not require a separate group function.

7.3 Evaluation of the programme will continue and provide valuable lessons which may lead to some adjustments but it is anticipated that the fundamental structure will remain for some time to give it the maximum opportunity to become effective.

7.4 The key development which has yet to be achieved is the extension of multi-disciplinary teams into multi-agency teams. It was always known that this would not be achieved in the early stages but remains an overall objective and will be overseen by the Children and Families Partnership Management Board at the appropriate time.

7.5 Other developments will support the overall programme and impact on some of the business process but will generally serve to enhance the functioning of this service. These include Hampshire's Contact Centre, Hantsdirect, which along with Hantsfish will provide a range of information advice on local services and also Contact Point, the national Information Sharing Index which will allow workers to know who else is working with a particular child or family and whether or not a CAF has already been done.

8 Legal Implications

8.1 There are no particular legal implications arising from this report.

9 Finance Implications

9.1 The Schools Forum are being asked to continue their support of this programme through a further allocation of funding from the schools block. If this is agreed, there are no financial implications arising from this report.

10 Personnel Implications

10.1 There are no particular personnel implications arising from this report.

11 Impact Assessment

11.1 No further impact assessment has been undertaken in respect of the implementation of this programme.

12 Crime prevention issues

12.1 There are no particular crime prevention implications arising from this report.

13 Conclusion

13.1 The implementation of CAF and the Lead Professional role has been a major undertaking for all authorities, as it impacts not only on Departmental staff but on the whole children's workforce.

13.2 It also represents a completely new way of working which should not only empower families but also requires front line workers to retain and share responsibility for meeting their needs.

13.3 The Locality Team Structure is a sound basis from which to co-ordinate, support, deliver and monitor services identified through this new way of working. It is still in its very early days but the engagement of all agencies has been substantial in seeking to achieve the best possible arrangements.

13.4 A great deal more work remains to be done and the overall programme is still in its very early stages, as the delivery of services and resultant outcomes are the key determinants of success.

13.5 However, the Project Team has ensured that all the 11 Locality Teams will be operating by early 2008, that the interagency steering group arrangements are sound, that mutual learning and sharing is being used to improve arrangements on a continual basis, and that there are plans for ongoing robust evaluation.

13.6 Further information on evaluation activity will be available through 2008.

Recommendations

1 There are no recommendations arising from this report.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None.