Introduction

Information Sharing and Assessment aims to ensure that children who have additional needs are identified early, referred to appropriate services and monitored through improved information sharing between agencies.  The government invested £10 million across ten trailblazer authorities, pairings or groups of neighboring authorities to develop and test out innovative approaches to information sharing and multi-agency working.

All other local authorities were allocated up to £100,000 to help them meet two sets of minimum requirements as a foundation for improving Information Sharing and Assessment (ISA).  The Department for Education and Skills commissioned Royal Holloway, University of London to assess the progress of the non-trailblazers against the March 2004 Minimum Requirements (published September 2004).  Progress was assessed in two ways, first a telephone interview with the lead person and second through scrutinizing the submitted paperwork.  The findings from this work suggest that a number of local authorities are experiencing some difficulties in meeting requirement 5 and requirement 7.

To support further work the Department of Education and Skills commissioned Royal Holloway to develop this toolkit that identifies the key issues that should be considered when developing individual aspects of these two requirements, namely:

• Multi-agency child friendly privacy statements

• Multi-agency consent (to share information) forms

• Multi-agency information on consent for children/young people and their families

• Multi-agency guidance for practitioners on how and when to gather and document consent

• Web based directories of services

Whilst the toolkit is split rigidly into the above sections, there is considerable overlap between many of them. Authorities need to consider whether a single document containing details on privacy, information for children/young people and their families on consent, and an attached consent form may be the best solution.