A pioneering assessment tool developed by Positive Steps Oldham (PSO) has been recognised by winning a national award.
The CAF Card package, which provides support to vulnerable young people won the Institute of Career Guidance (ICG) national award for Inclusion at the ICG Conference Hall in Cardiff on Friday 14th November.
‘CAF Cards were initially designed through consultation with young people.’ Explains Dave Stewart, Training Consultant at Positive Steps Oldham.
‘All agencies working with young people use the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) to assess children and young people’s needs. However doing this with the CAF Cards make this assessment process more meaningful and empowering for the young people themselves.
‘Young people being assessed by services often feel that their assessments are one way, this approach makes it a two way interaction. The Cards use a variety of images encourage young people to explore their own ideas and feelings, making them feel much more involved in the assessment process.
‘Each pack of cards contains 19 specially selected and designed images, ranging from a mirror with a heart to a balancing scale with a burger and an apple, the idea is that the practitioner working with the young people will ask them to pick a card and talks through the thoughts and associations made with that image. Another exercise asks young people to place the cards against three traffic lights to represent their life.
‘Initially this started off as a package that services in Oldham could use, but the cards proved so popular that we now deliver training in using the cards right across the country.
‘ So far practitioners from over 50 local authority areas have been trained and
Positive Steps have worked with partner agencies from Germany, Denmark and the Czech Republic to secure funding to translate the cards into those languages and train practitioners in those countries.
PSO has also worked with St Helens council to develop Early Years CAF Cards specifically for young children (up to age 8) and their parents.
If anyone wishes to find out more about CAF Cards or Early Years CAF Cards they should see the web site: www.cafcards.co.uk or contact Dave Stewart at davestewart@positivestepsoldham.org.uk or 0161 621 9653
