Opinions about CAF please

[Jerbil]

I agreed with the SENco at school yesterday for a CAF for DS1 after being told how good it is by DS2's SENco (Nursery).
Have then spoke to a friend who works in a School and she's said it's a bad thing?

It takes forever to do anything with a CAF! But I'm sure the good side is when there are many different problems in a child's life, CAF joins up the different agencies, and then things may work faster. Our experience to try and access a minor service was frustrating in extreme. We tried to get family therapy through CAF, having been offered it last July. Only now have all the forms being approved, filled in etc. So you need a bit more staying power and frustration resistant armour plating. But we are finally seeing the family therapist next week They consider all the different issues on ONE FORM.

Waste of time for me - except as another report when trying to get a statement. The SW was pleasant but not very effective. I sent back a report he sent to me where DS had "ASPARAGUS" syndrome - I mean if you use a spell checker read it for sense afterwards and spell check the WHOLE document.
I gave up in the end trying to make him write a report in proper English.
The recommendations on it were just that - but I couldn't actually get any of the help it suggested on it.
Perhaps you will have more joy.
Actually I do know someone who had one done and it was a huge springboard to getting her child assessed and the help he actually needed.

I have only come across one child who has been CAF'd, he is a lovely little chap, For us in preschool it has enabled us to access support for him without having to jump through hoops and it has helped his Mum to get funding for him for preschool.

So far so good .

I would say go for it, any forward movement in paperwork/assessments can only be a good thing.

I think it depends on who you talk to. My understanding is that some have had good experiences, some have had bad. A lot depends on the specific people involved.

I was told about the availability of it by DS2's OT. She basically explained what it was, said that if we were interested or wanted to do it in the future, all we had to do was let her know and she would help get it going. We've declined for now.

Our school (which has been brilliant in every other way) ambushed me with it, pushing some unknown woman on me, insisting we needed to answer a bunch of questions for her and that we must have CAF. I again declined, made sure to point out that I wasn't happy about being ambushed with it, and told them in no uncertain terms that if I DID decide to do it, I would be going through the OT, NOT this woman or the school.

I honestly still don't know if CAF is a good thing or a bad thing.

We had a caf done a while back when we were trying to get DS's statement and DX sorted and in our case it was really helpful. I think it depends who is involved and their personalities TBH. Our CAF really helped in chasing the 2 'professionals' who were being evasive and were stalling me getting help for my DS (specialist salt and EdPsych). Having the other people involved chase them as well as me (phone calls and letters and emails until they waved the white flag and did their jobs! ) got things done.

I was lucky though in that the other people involved in the CAF were helful, supportive, and on the ball. School nurse, school senco, and DS's TA were all fab! School nurse started the CAF after I'd been let down by evasive useless HV, and a vanishing salt. She also helped me with getting DS's pull ups on prescription, and telling me about wheelchair services.

So I think they are good, but only if the people involved with it are good at their jobs! In my case the majority of them were and we whipped the minority into action.

I think it depends on who is involved and for what purpose they are used.

In our LA, they started to introduce them as a compulsory measure which had to be undergone BEFORE a child could access statutory services like an Ed Psych.

This meant that it was yet another delay before a child could apply for a statutory assessment.

We challenged this locally but I don't know if our lousy council actually did what they promised to do which is to stop telling schools this rubbish.

I think it also opens up carte blanche the LAs rights to chat about you behind your back and get together with other professionals to undermine what you are saying in the statementing process - which is what they do often.

So, make sure it has a very specific purpose, make sure you know the people involved and make sure you do not sign away your rights to know what is being said and done on your son's behalf.

They do depend on the agencies involved, and the Lead Person.
They can be useful - particularly if there is an agency that hasn't been engaging (usually housing IME) when you have some leaverage to make them engage, but, while things are going OK, then thay can just become another layer of paperwork / round of meetings and form filling in.

appropriatelytrained... thanks for the warning. I'll watch where I put my signature.

This has all come about because I've been a pain in the &%£ to them. We had a meeting and I told them I wouldn't need to be a pain in the %$£ (my words not theirs) to them if the left hand knew what the right hand was doing (in the case of the teachers not my DS1), and they did everything that was promised. To be fair they accepted my criticisms so far and said they would deal with all my points and I have been there while they've made some targets with my agreement. It's a case of watch this space as the SENco has said to me don't come to us, we'll come to you! Nice!!!

ive been waiting for caf for a year and i didnt even know what it was for. ds has now been diagnosed. well sort of .
totally agree if one knew what the other was doing we would all be in a much better position.

That is the theory behind CAF kidrus - that all agencies get together in the same meeting, so the right hand does know what the left hand is doing. From the meeting, there should be action points with named people to take responsibility and timeframes within which those actions should happen.
The issue was, they talk about the 'Lead Person' but this is generally left to someone who is already doing a full time job elsewhere. If the Gvmnts are so keen to have all these CAFs registered, then they need to be appointing people whose job it is, to chair and facilitiate these meetings and the paperwork surrounding them. That way, they could work a lot better.

I was told that it would be so helpful for me to get the CAF going so that one person took the lead and made sure everything was done. I calmly pointed out that one person already took the lead and made sure everything was done----ME!! I keep in contact with the paed, the OT, the SALT...all by email on a regular basis. I touch base with the SENCO regularly and the TA and teacher daily upon handover. I make sure the SENCO has copies of any reports she needs and advise her of any upcoming appts (as well as the teacher, for class scheduling purposes). When necessary, the paed and the OT make direct referrals if DS2 needs something else. It works very well. Why would I want to change it??

Well Triggles, when I did my training, the answer would be - you don't! It's all working well for you, so you don't need to have a CAF.
Many parents don't have the energy/skills/confidence/strength(?) to do all that though, and the Lead Person is there to support them (actually, the LP can be the parent). Or sometimes, the parent is able to do that, but is hitting a brick wall with one particular agency, and the CAF can enforce that agency to come on board.

We've been warned off it by Social Care, because for them it slows the process down. It's only as fast as the slowest agency contributing, and then the level of detail isn't enough for SC to allocate resources. So once it is finished and agreed, they have to start their assessment process from scratch. So if you desperately need resources from one agency, you are far faster self-referring to that agency, rather than going through another one because as soon as there are 2 agencies involved, it automatically triggers the CAF process which can be a big delay. That's a down side. An up side is that, as others have said, it drags half-hearted agencies into engagement. Horses for courses, really.

backforgood - the school for some reason was trying to push me into it. I really don't know why, and as soon as I questioned their motives for it, they backed off immediately. They've been so good regarding DS2, I was quite surprised about it. It was a bit odd.

I will say that any time anyone has started dragging their feet, either the paed or the OT has jumped right on them as well and sorted things. So we've been quite lucky in them.

Triggles I was contacting each day at drop off with teacher/TA but have been told stop. Apparently, I have too many things to say. what, like, he's on a reading programme now and your not sending the book home for him to practice! In effect I suppose I've been trying to manage everything and ensure everything is followed according to plan - obviously I'm unrealistic. A CAF will hopefully give me regular methods of voicing my observations as to what's not happening as it should be.

Insane, isn't it? We've had some to-ing and fro-ing with the school, but I will say that when faced with a reasonable and calm argument, they are willing to listen.

Hopefully it will be a good thing for you.