Introduction

This update has been designed by the ContactPoint Implementation Team for Wakefield Council and is aimed at practitioners from teams and establishments within Family Services, including social care and education, and also, practitioners within Health departments.  This update will be of significance to some members of the voluntary sector who are involved with children as part of their roles.

Hopefully many of you will have some awareness of ContactPoint already through the work we are undertaking to reach practitioners at team and managers meetings and this brief will clarify the relevance for you, as a potential user of ContactPoint.

If you are new to the subject of ContactPoint, this update will give an overview of the project, its background, benefits and local progress to date and will also introduce us as your contacts for any questions and queries.

ContactPoint Background and Benefits

ContactPoint is being developed as part of the Every Child Matters programme to improve outcomes for all children.  It is a national database of children in England and will be a vital part of delivering early intervention for children who need additional services and effective safeguarding for children at risk of harm.   

The Every Child Matters programme focuses on improving outcomes so that all children are healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being.

It is important to highlight ContactPoint as a project alongside the other key initiatives of the ECM agenda which are the development of a national eCAF system for completion of the Common Assessment Framework and Child Well Being model, role of the lead professional, Integrated Children’s Systems and Integrated Working.

ContactPoint has been designed to support the processes of those that work with children. Several Local Authority Trailblazers have demonstrated that the national database will reduce time taken by practitioners to locate and contact professionals working with the same child from other agencies and/or Local Authority areas.

ContactPoint will also allow identification of any children who are not accessing universal services and could therefore be vulnerable.

More effective multi-agency working is enabled, which leads to better experience of service delivery by children, young people and parents who are less likely to undergo duplicate assessment processes.

The Regulations, which came into force on 1st August 2007, provide the legal framework for ContactPoint under section 12 of the Children Act 2004.

More information is available at the Every Child Matters Website which can be found under 'Related Links'.

What Information will be Available?

For practitioners ContactPoint will be the quick way to find out who else is working with the same child or young person, making it easier to deliver more coordinated support.

It is a national database of all children in England from birth to age 18 and will contain the following basic identifying information:

• Name, address, DOB, gender and an identifying number
• Name and contact details for:

      - parents or carers
      - educational setting, eg school
      - primary medical practitioner, eg, GP
      - other services involved with the child

There will also be the facility to indicate if a practitioner is the lead professional for a child and/or if they have completed an assessment under the Common Assessment Framework.

What Information Will Not be Available?

No case, assessment information or exam results will be contained within ContactPoint.
 
How Secure will ContactPoint Be?

ContactPoint access will be restricted to those who need it as part of their role.  In addition to ContactPoint training, all users must undergo an enhanced Criminal Record Bureau disclosure (renewed every three years).  They must have security clearance via a username, password, pin and personal security token.

Every access will be detailed in an audit trail which will be reviewed regularly.

The security of ContactPoint is of paramount importance. Assessments and rigorous testing have been undertaken by independent security experts and will continue prior to the database going live.

How will ContactPoint be Updated?

Users of ContactPoint will be able to access ContactPoint via their case management systems, a secure weblink or through another authorized user.

Where possible, ContactPoint will be automatically updated from existing systems so that users would not have to input information twice.

When will ContactPoint be Available?

Current plans suggest that ContactPoint will be live in Wakefield in Summer 2009.

Local Progress:

Each Local Authority is the data controller for their own ‘band’ within ContactPoint; there are 150 sections within ContactPoint each corresponding to a Local Authority. 

Each Local Authority should work closely with the partner agencies as stakeholders of ContactPoint whose data will be sent to the national system.

Wakefield ContactPoint Implementation Team are working closely with other teams from the Yorkshire and Humber region and are on track with meeting the project milestones including Partner Engagement and Data Quality.

Future tasks will include the development of a ContactPoint Training Strategy and the appointment of a Training Officer and User Administrator.  A helpdesk function will also be made available closer to the implementation date.

The ContactPoint Team have an estimation of users per team/establishment and will seek obtain further detail as to post and names of ContactPoint users as a future task.