ContactPoint
What is it
ContactPoint is a secure national database set up to improve the
wellbeing of children. It is a quick way to find out who else is
working with the same child or young person, making it easier to
provide more coordinated support and improve outcomes for children.
It is a national requirement from the Children Act 2004, which
means all local authorities across England have to take part. Every
child and young person in England from birth until their 18th
birthday will appear in the database. ContactPoint has been
developed in response to recommendation of Lord Laming's inquiry
into the tragic death of Victoria Climbié.
The ContactPoint project is being led by the DCSF (Department
for Children, Schools and Families) and Regional Implementation
Coordinators are in place to support local authority staff with the
implementation of ContactPoint.
Worcestershire County Council is responsible for the
implementation of ContactPoint within Worcestershire and it is our
responsibility to support other partner agencies in getting the
data up and running.
What Information will be held on ContactPoint?
ContactPoint will only hold simple information such as:
- Name
- Gender
- Date of birth
- Address
- Parent / Carer contact details
- GP
- Health visitor
- Education/School
- Any additional involvements e.g. Youth Worker, Social
Worker, SENCO
In most cases, a child's record will be archived when they turn
18. Records of some young adults may stay on ContactPoint until
they are 25, but only for very limited reasons and only with
consent from that young adult. A record will be held in a secure
archive for six years and then destroyed. The archive can only be
accessed for limited reasons, such as investigations over a child's
care.
Why has ContactPoint been developed?
As a result of Lord Laming's 2003 report into the death of
Victoria Climbié, a number of recommendations led to the
development of the Every Child Matters program. http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/aims/
One of the recommendations from Lord Laming's 2003 report was that
the Government looks into the feasibility of a database covering
all children, providing basic identifying details and contact
details for practitioners and services involved with the child.
At the moment practitioners can waste a lot of time trying to
find out who else is working with the same child. Practitioners
working with a child need to know about each other and talk to each
other, so that they can provide the right support quickly for a
child, before problems become more serious.
Why do all children in England have to be on
ContactPoint?
Between 3 and 4 million children and young people in
England may need extra support at any one time, but no-one knows
exactly which children are going to need support or when they will
need it. The purpose of ContactPoint is to help make sure all
children and young people can get extra support if and when they
need it. ContactPoint can also help to make sure that every child
is being educated (whether at school or home) and is registered
with a doctor (or has access to medical help).
How will ContactPoint benefit children?
ContactPoint will help professionals to contact a parent/carer
and each other if a child needs support. If professionals working
with a child know about each other they can:
- make sure that every child is getting the correct
support they need;
- ensure that the child has the right support quickly,
before problems get more serious;
- work together, which means that a child or a family
doesn’t have to explain the same things lots of different times;
and
- make sure they are not duplicating work already being
done by others.
Children, young people and families should always be at the
centre of what is happening and have a say in the services and
support they get. Please see Kelly's story in the useful
documents, as an example of how ContactPoint will benefit
children.
How will it work?
The idea is that partner agencies will be able to access
ContactPoint and work more effectively together. It will allow them
to contact each other if they are working with the same child or
young person. Practitioners will then be in a position to share the
most up-to-date and accurate information about a child. The aim is
to ensure the child or young person receives the best possible
service(s) to meet their needs.
Where will the information come from?
ContactPoint will initially be populated by national data
sources from Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Office for National
Statistics (ONS) and the Department of Health (DoH).
In time, this data will then be enriched by feeding ContactPoint
with data from local systems used by staff in the Children’s
Services Directorate as well as local systems operated by partner
agencies.
The information from all these difference sources will combine
in ContactPoint to create the 'best view' child record.
Nationally, data management tools will be used to remove
duplicates from the main ContactPoint database and the data will be
cleansed from different sources.
Once the database is ‘live’ to practitioners it will be
refreshed by automated data feeds from the national and local data
providers.
Although these information sources provide information for
ContactPoint about a child, they are not able to extract
information back from ContactPoint, meaning that any information in
ContactPoint is kept strictly confidential.
