The national agenda for children's services is simple. Every child should have the opportunity to fulfil his or her potential, and no child or young person should slip through the net.
This can only be achieved through a joined up approach to meeting the needs of children and young people, and recognition that everyone working with them has a responsibility for this. This is a vision everyone can share; and to deliver this vision changes must be made to the way people work.
The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) for Children and Young People is a key part of the strategy to shift the focus from dealing with the consequences of difficulties in children's lives to preventing things from going wrong in the first place. It is a nationally standardised approach to conducting an assessment of the needs of a child or young person and deciding how those needs should be met.