CAF Hub in Darlington

The CAF Hub offers advice and support for practitioners on all aspects of the Common Assessment Framework.

An access database records basic details on all CAFs namely:

  • Child/young person’s name
  • Date of Birth
  • Postcode
  • Practitioner carrying out CAF
  • Date logged
  • Who makes up the TAC (Team around the child)
  • Lead Practitioner
  • Dates of meetings

The database holds no assessment information whatsoever it is merely a means of recording a CAF so that other practitioners can find out if a CAF exists or not by ringing the CAF Hub, alternatively all children or young people in receipt of a CAF have an indicator flag on ContactPoint.

Statistics to the end of March 2010 show the following figures being logged with the CAF Hub:

  • Total number of CAFs completed: 332
  • Total number of pre-CAFs completed:178
  • Number of open CAFs:218
  • Number of closed CAFs:114


The CAF Support Group continues to meet every Friday afternoon (1pm – 3pm) at Dr. Piper House. The Support Group offers advice on all new CAFs particularly in membership to TAC (Team around the Child) and should Lead Practitioners be experiencing any problems/concerns they can visit the Support Group.

National eCAF was developed as an IT system to support the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)  - a single, secure, web-based IT system designed for use by practitioners and managers who use the common assessment framework as part of their work with children. 

In light of the Government's response to the final report of the Munro review of child protection: a child-centred system the system is now under review.

The Department for Education (formerly DCSF)published the National quality framework for the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) process. This guidance provides a nationally developed quality framework that can be implemented locally to monitor and improve the quality of the CAF process to help improve outcomes for children and young people. To access the national framework use the link below.

Common Assessment Framework (CAF) [external link]