Voluntary Action Camden - Children & Families

Identification, Referral and Tracking (IRT)

Identification, Referral and Tracking (IRT) is a major project with substantial funding from central government that aims to improve the sharing of essential information between agencies, in order to meet the needs of children who require additional support. Camden has been selected by the government as a ‘trailblazer’ authority, which means that it is at the cutting edge of developing IRT developments.

An IRT pilot will start in Camden in late spring. At the start the number of agencies involved will be small, the IRT lead group will make sure that the system works before any expansion.

All participating groups will be provided with the training required for being involved in the IRT project. Voluntary and community organisations will be part of IRT, but there is still a need to agree which services or organisations are able to join and in what order.

The IRT lead group has proposed discussing how these decisions are made with the Children and Families Network at VAC and suggested three main areas as guidance:

· Capacity of organisation, i.e. how equipped is the organisation in terms of human resources and technical capacity
· What is the contribution of the service to the community, i.e. does the organisation provide a service to groups of children who might not receive a service from more mainstream services? And
· What can the service or organisation contribute to the development of the IRT Project?

CINDEX

A key part of the Identification, Referral and Tracking (IRT) project is the development of and enhancement of CINDEX.

This takes two forms:
a) richer information about services and
b) a technical update to the system.

The capture of enhanced organisational details to meet the needs of the IRT services directory is an on going process for the CINDEX team.

An IRT questionnaire has been sent out to over 1000 service providers. The response to the questionnaire has been extremely positive with an almost 50% rate of return, but the quality of the data has been variable.

New inputting fields are now available on CINDEX including: client group, catchment area, referral and charging policies, and languages spoken.

Additionally, and for professional use only, improved contact information is now available for key workers in Camden working with children and young people.

If you would like to know more about IRT contact either

IRT team
London Borough of Camden
T: 020 7974 4250

or

Mohammed Hussein
Children & Families Development Worker
Voluntary Action Camden

T: 020 7284 6572
E: Mohamed Hussein

Last Updated November 11, 2008