ContactPoint Explained A new online directory, which is going live across England during the summer of 2009, aims to help and support the kind of cross-sector working that’s at the heart of the vision for children’s services. But how will it work and what does it mean for you? Effective communication and appropriate sharing of information is vital to ensure children and young people get the best services possible. However, simply trying to find out if anyone else is involved and how to reach them can be hugely time-consuming. This is where ContactPoint will help. What is ContactPoint? ContactPoint is a contacts list for professionals who work with children and young people. It will provide them with a quick way to find out who else is working with the same child or young person, making it easier for them to work as a team and deliver more coordinated support. This basic online tool will be available to authorised practitioners who need it to do their jobs. It is a key part of the Every Child Matters programme and the Children’s Plan, to improve the health, well-being and safety of all children. Why do we need it? Currently practitioners can waste days trying to find out who else is working with the same child or unknowingly duplicate work that is already being carried out by another service. Practitioners working with a child need to know about each other and talk to each other, so that they can find the right support quickly, before problems get more serious. ContactPoint is something that practitioners have told us that they want and need in order to do their jobs more effectively. What information does ContactPoint hold? • The name, contact details, gender, date of birth and an identifying number for every child or young person in England up to their 18th birthday. • Name and contact details for each child’s: .. Parents / carers; .. Education setting (e.g. school) and health provider (e.g. GP); .. Other services (e.g. social worker, youth worker); and .. Lead professional (where appointed). ContactPoint will also show if a CAF has been undertaken and contact details for the CAF ‘holder’. What does it mean for people working in early years and childcare? The early years and childcare sector is crucial to the vision for children’s services. Providers are key to helping to identify and address the needs early in the life of a child. In order to carry out this role as effectively as possible, it’s important that a practitioner can quickly find out if a child is already receiving support from other agencies. Practitioners working with children and young people across education, health, social care, youth offending and the voluntary and community sector will need access to ContactPoint. In early years, this will include those working in nurseries and reception classes in primary schools, outreach workers and those working in children’s centres. How will ContactPoint work? ContactPoint has been designed to fit into a practitioner’s daily work and not impose additional burdens. It will support other measures (such as the Common Assessment Framework and the lead professional role). Where possible it will be updated automatically from existing systems (national and local) so that information only has to be entered once. Want more information? Visit the Every Child Matters website www.everychildmatters.gov.uk for further information. ..ContactPoint will NOT hold any case information about a child or young person (such as school records or medical notes). .. Every child in England will be on ContactPoint to ensure they receive support as early as possible if and when they need it. ContactPoint Q&A Why do all children in England have to be on ContactPoint? Between 3 and 4 million children and young people in England need extra support at any one time, but it is impossible to predict which children need, or are going to need, this support or when they will need it. ContactPoint will help to ensure that all children and young people can get extra support quickly, if and when they need it, as soon as a first sign of need is noticed, rather than waiting for problems to get more serious. It is sensible to hold a very limited amount of information on all children rather than having to continually make decisions about which children to put on ContactPoint and which to take off. All children have a right to education and primary health care. ContactPoint will show whether or not they are receiving those services. Where has this data come from? The information needed for ContactPoint comes from existing systems. There are a number of national sources which have provided this core information. These include the General Register Office, the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ schools census, the Department of Work and Pensions’ child benefit database and the NHS Personal Demographics Service, which has provided GP practice information. How will you ensure ContactPoint is accurate and up-to-date? What happens when a child moves? Wherever possible, ContactPoint will be automatically updated from existing systems (e.g. practitioners’ case management systems) so that practitioners will not need to enter the same information twice. When information has been updated in these systems it will be sent automatically to ContactPoint as an update. So for example, when a child moves and their new address is updated by their GP practice, that information will be sent as an automatic update to ContactPoint. The information held on ContactPoint will not be sent to or shared with any other systems. ContactPoint will only be able to receive the basic information as set out in Section 12 of the Children Act 2004 and the supporting Regulations, which specifically prohibit the inclusion of any case information. Those required or permitted to supply information to ContactPoint must take reasonable steps to ensure the information is accurate; they already have obligations for data accuracy under the Data Protection Act 1998. If a local authority considers that there are inaccuracies or omitted information in a record for which it is responsible, the authority must take reasonable steps to correct the inaccuracy or to complete the record. Will people be able to see the information held about them? Yes. Children and young people, and parents when acting on a child's behalf, have rights under the Data Protection Act 1998 to ask to see the information that is held about them. This is known as a Subject Access Request. Local authorities are required to manage requests locally. What will happen to the record when a young person turns 18? In most cases, a record will be archived when a person turns 18. There is a facility for the records of some young adults to stay on ContactPoint until they are 25, but only for very limited reasons and only with explicit consent. A record will be held in the secure archive for six years and then destroyed. The archive can only be accessed for the limited reasons which are set out in Regulations. Who will use ContactPoint? Access to ContactPoint will be strictly limited to those who need it as part of their work. Authorised users will include those working in health, education, youth justice, social care and voluntary organisations to help ensure more coordinated service provision for children and young people. Before being granted access, all users must have completed identity checks, enhanced Criminal Records Bureau disclosure (renewable every three years) and mandatory training. To access ContactPoint all users must have a user name, password, security token and PIN. All users will be made aware that use of ContactPoint will be monitored and that misuse will result in disciplinary action or criminal procedures. How does ContactPoint affect existing rules about confidentiality and information sharing? It doesn’t. ContactPoint only provides name and contact details to enable practitioners to contact each other. When contact is made between practitioners, they will need to use their professional judgement on what information should be shared based on the facts of the case, obtaining consent as and when appropriate. The considerations that have to be applied to information sharing decisions are exactly the same with or without ContactPoint. Cross-government guidance on information sharing was updated in October 2008 to provide clear, comprehensive guidance to practitioners and managers across agencies on how to appropriately share information within the existing legal framework. This is available from www.ecm.gov.uk/informationsharing. Training for ContactPoint users will include the importance of compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Human Rights Act 1998 and the appropriate use of the system. Shielding Records What is shielding? Some people may need to have some of their details hidden on ContactPoint to prevent their location being identified. This is called shielding. It is for people who are at risk of significant harm, such as victims of domestic violence. The shielding concept is used by lots of systems, not just ContactPoint. What information will be shown on a shielded record? Shielded records will show only: • the child’s/young person’s name; • their date of birth; • their gender; and • the unique ContactPoint ID number. Information that could help locate individuals at risk will not be visible. When to shield? The necessity to shield a record on ContactPoint must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The ContactPoint Guidance sets out the limited circumstances where shielding would be applicable. Chiefly, these are when there are strong reasons to believe that by not doing so would be likely to: • place a child at increased risk of significant harm1; • place an adult at risk of significant harm; • prejudice the prevention or detection of a serious crime; or • in the case of adoption, put a child’s placement at risk The Children Act 1989 introduced the concept of significant harm as the threshold that justifies compulsory intervention in family life in the best interests of children. There are no absolute criteria on which to rely when judging significant harm. Sometimes, a single traumatic event may constitute significant harm, for example violent assault, suffocation or poisoning. More often, significant harm is a compilation of events, both acute and longstanding, which interrupt, change or damage the child’s physical and psychological development. Cases when it might be appropriate to shield could arise where, for example: • a child/young person is placed for adoption where there is little or no contact with birth parent(s) or other family members; • a child/young person and/or their parent/carer are fleeing abuse or domestic violence; and/or • a child/young person and/or their parent/carer or family member are subject to police protection. The need to shield a record may also arise for children/young people and or their parent/carer in a very limited number of circumstances not covered by these categories. For example, the records of siblings or other children who live with or who are closely related to a child/young person whose record has been shielded. 1 By increased risk of significant harm we mean that: • one or more individual(s) are likely to cause significant harm to the child/young person and/or their parent/carer; and therefore • the child/young person and/or their parent/carer are being, or will be, protected at a location that is not known to the individual(s) posing the threat. Shielding a record In the vast majority of cases, requests for shielding will be made by practitioners on behalf of families. They will do this on the basis of what they already know about the child/young person, or as a result of concerns raised by the child/young person and/or their parent/carers. Practitioners who are not ContactPoint users should contact their local authority to request that a child’s record is shielded. Parents who are concerned and have reason to believe their child should be shielded on ContactPoint will, of course, be able to contact their local authority. Local authority reviews To make sure that the shielding facility is used and managed appropriately, the local authority ContactPoint Management Team will undertake an initial review within seven days of the shield being requested, to determine whether or not the record should be shielded. Reviews of the shielded decision are undertaken every six months thereafter to help ensure that records do not remain shielded inappropriately. As part of their reviews, local authorities will seek views from any relevant involved practitioners and the child/young person and, where appropriate, their parent/carers. Removing a shield To ensure that shields are not removed inappropriately, ContactPoint records remain shielded until the local authority makes a final decision to remove the shield from the record. This is where Childcare professionals may become involved with ContactPoint What does ContactPoint mean for me as a childcare provider? If you have concerns about a child or family (especially if you believe that their information should be shielded), in the first instance, talk to the parents or carer and encourage them to get in touch with the ContactPoint team in Bromley. If the parent or carer is reluctant and you as a provider feel that the child needs to be shielded, please get in touch with the ContactPoint team in Bromley as soon as you can. For ContactPoint in Bromley, please email: contactpoint@bromley.gov.uk or telephone: 020 8313 4476