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What is Integrated Practice?
Integrated practice, incorporating the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), focuses on enabling, and encouraging, practitioners to work together and to adopt common processes to deliver frontline services coordinated  and built around the needs of the child/young person.
By working together we can make sure that a child’s additional needs are assessed in a more holistic way.
Integrated working includes introducing tools to help us communicate more effectively. These tools include the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), Lead Professional role, and eCAF.
To help CAF practitioners to call together a Team Around the Family (TAF), a contacts directory is available on Compass. The directory is arranged by District and Extended School Consortia areas. Professionals and practitioners who have completed Integrated Practice training are included as well as County-wide specialists.
The directory can be found on Compass (the HCC intranet accessible from within Hertfordshire Schools)
Guidance for practitioners is available on the Herts Direct web site:
For queries on integrated practice please email caf-enquiries@hertscc.gov.uk
Common Assessment Framework
For information on the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), Team Around the Family (TAF) and Lead Professional, including CAF Form and Practitioner Guidance:
National eCAF (NeCAF) in Hertfordshire
National eCAF (NeCAF) is simply an electronic version of the standard paper CAF process already being used across Hertfordshire. NeCAF will enable authorised, trained practitioners from different sectors of the children’s workforce to electronically store and share CAF information quickly and securely, and to work together to build a holistic picture of a child or young person’s needs.
Guidance for Schools
Factsheet for NeCAF Schools
Meeting the Needs of Children and Families in Hertfordshire
The Meeting the Needs of Children and Families in Hertfordshire sets out clear thresholds for accessing targeted and specialist services. It supports practitioners in making decisions on how best to respond to the needs of children and families.
It is expected that all agencies in the county will work to the thresholds as set out in this handbook. It is therefore important that the children’s workforce in Hertfordshire have a clear understanding of the threshold guidance in their work with children and families, and that it is consistently used across the county. The handbook includes a new, more simplified, ‘Continuum of Needs’ windscreen and a clearer indication of the different levels and indicators for universal, targeted and specialist needs. The handbook is designed to only to be a guide and is not intended to replace professional judgement in any situation.
Download a pdf version of the handbook below:
 Meeting the Needs of Children and Families in Hertfordshire
CAF, DPR, Personalised Commissioning Forms & Guidance
All the Common Assessment Framework forms and supporting tools are available on Herts Direct. Please visit this site regularly to ensure that you have the latest version of the forms and procedures:
CAF forms can also be accessed on schools SIMS system:
Child Protection Referral Form and Service Request Forms
Earlier this year, the Improving Outcomes Group of the Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Board, tasked a working group with updating the existing single service request (SSR) form and ensuring it was fit for purpose.
Partners felt that the current SSR does not meet their needs and is not suitable as a child protection referral form.
As a result, two new forms have now been designed to suit individual referrals for
- Child protection (RED form) and
- A request for a service from another agency (GREEN form)
We are pleased to inform you that these new forms are now approved and ready for use by all organisations and partners from 1st January 2013.
Both new forms replace the current SSR. From this date, the ‘old’ SSR should not be used - please discard any old templates.
The new forms and guidance are available at :
Advice on generating the single service request form from sims.net can be found on the SITSS web pages at:
Integrated Practice - Training and Development
Anyone whose work brings them into contact with children, young people and families should have an awareness of the Common Assessment Framework and Information Sharing.
Practitioners should either know how to complete a Common Assessment themselves or know how to arrange to have one undertaken. Everyone working with children and families should be aware of sharing information safely and how to use the Common Assessment Framework as an Early Intervention Tool.
Hertfordshire offers a comprehensive training programme consisting of
- Single Full Day Integrated Practice Training
- Integrated Practice Key Skills Workshops
- Integrated Practice Roadshows
For more information please visit HertsDirect at:
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