Gary Cole - volunteer
Job role: volunteer
Gary volunteers at the weekend for John Perry Children's Centre who have joined-up with the local football team, (Dagenham and Redbridge) to run a project called "Sports Fit". Its primary aim is to bring children and young people together with their parents, especially dads.
Gary explains why integrated working is so important in keeping children safe and supported.
"I volunteer at the weekend for a children's centre that is linked with the local football team, whose primary aim is to bring children and young people together with their parents, especially dads. As we get to know the children and parents, if we think that they need some extra support we can use the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) to look at the child's needs and start improving things for them.
"To be honest I never thought I'd ever volunteer for anything like this. I came up with the idea with some work colleagues and have been doing it for nearly two years now. I find it incredibly rewarding working with these kids as I can see the difference we're making to them and their families.
It's important to me to know there is a clear process for working with children who may be vulnerable. As a volunteer this isn't something I do everyday, so having something like CAF gives me confidence that I'm working within guidelines - and that everyone else is as well.
"The main benefit of CAF is that it brings everyone together, who has the best interests of the child at heart. It makes sure we talk to each other; share information and can bring in other agencies to support the child and family without having to repeat their story.
"I suppose that I never used to think that these ways of working with children and families were that relevant to me, but CAF has already helped us to improve things for a number of children. With these kids we could see that something wasn't quite right, but CAF meant we were able to offer support and work well with the child and everyone involved to try and make things better. In these cases that meant simply encouraging the family to spend more time together and for the child to interact with others.
"It may seem like common sense, but without using CAF to conduct the conversation and raise our concerns we wouldn't have known what to do and couldn't have been sure we were helping them in the right way.
"We've had some great feedback from parents, saying what a difference it's made to them and their children, now that they're spending quality time together. Using the framework helped make sure we were all acting in the interest of the child. I've seen the difference our help has made in these cases, which proves the value of working together.
"We've all read about those horrible cases which shows what can happen when people don't work together. CAF can help to prevent this from happening. It helps to provide early intervention with children and young people with additional needs and helps us work together for the best possible outcome for the child.
"You sometimes take for granted kids happily playing football or some other game, but this isn't always the case for many. For these children integrated working helps us identify a problem, and take steps to support them to solve their problems, giving them back a normal childhood."
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