ContactPoint Briefing

Who, Why and What is ContactPoint? Find out the benefits of using the service.

What is ContactPoint?

ContactPoint will be the quick way to find out who else is working with a child or young person, making it easier to share information effectively and to deliver coordinated support. It will be a basic online directory of all children in England available to authorised practitioners to enable them to do their job. ContactPoint is a key part of the Every Child Matters programme to improve outcomes for children.

Why do we need ContactPoint?

The purpose of ContactPoint is to help improve services to children with a strong emphasis on early intervention and prevention. Currently practitioners can spend 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. ContactPoint has been designed to support the processes followed by those who work with children.

What will the benefits be?

Several local authority "Trailblazers" have been piloting local directories (known as "indexes"). They demonstrated that this type of tool produces some key benefits:

• less time trying to find other practitioners
• quicker assessment of whether a child is receiving universal services (education, primary health care);
• enables more effective multi-agency working which leads to better service experience for children and young people.

An essential requirement identified in the early stages of development was that ContactPoint must be a national system to ensure it works for children who receive services across, or move across local authority boundaries.

What information will be held on ContactPoint?

• Name, address, gender, date of birth of all children resident in England (up to 18th birthday)
• An identifying number for each child
• Name and contact details for: -
  Educational setting e.g. school
  Primary medical centre (e.g. GP practice)
  Practitioners providing other services e.g. social worker, health visitor, youth worker
  Lead Professional (if appointed)
  Parents or carers

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.

Explicit consent will be required to record contact details for sensitive services (defined as sexual health, mental health and substance abuse). Access to this information will be restricted.

Consent will also be required for care leavers or those with learning difficulties to remain on ContactPoint up to age 25, to facilitate the transition to adult services.

ContactPoint will NOT contain any case information (such as case notes, assessments, medical data or exam results).

Page 1 Next >>

Your Feedback

If you have any feedback about this article, or if you would like someone to get in touch with you, please leave your comments and details using our feedback form.