Two local authorities put the two year integrated review into practice
Warwickshire and Islington have been looking at how the new integrated review can work in practice. The new two year integrated review will bring together checks carried out by both health professionals and early years settings.
The Early Childhood Unit at National Children’s Bureau commissioned research to be carried out in Warwickshire and Islington to create clear communication about how this may work in practice. The aim of this research was to
- Achieve an effective assessment of the whole child
Enable early years and health practitioners to work together
Develop partnership with parents
Each county designed their own model. Warwickshire adopted the approach of parents having separate meetings, one with the early years setting and one with the health professionals. This model heavily relies on parents passing paperwork from nursery to health professionals. Information from health professionals is passed back to early years settings in the form of a postcard outlining the health professionals comments.
Islington developed a joint meeting approach, they also included the introduction of a named link health practitioner for each of their early years settings.
How do these two models work in practice?
In Warwickshire, a poster is displayed in the setting to informing parents to look out for an appointment from the health team and that they will need to take with them the child’s progress summary which is completed by the nursery. It is the early years settings responsibility to have children’s progress summary completed ready for the two year integrated review. Parents must share the progress summary along with contact details of the child’s key person with the health professional. On completion of the review, parents are given a postcard with the health professionals comments, this is to be shared with the nursery. The health professional completes a data sheet which records the child’s assessment information.
In Islington, the early years setting contacts the link health practitioner to arrange appointments for the children who are due their review. Parents are given an appointment letter from the early years setting. It is then the settings responsibility to prepare the child’s progress summary, share it with the parents and complete the relevant sections. Prior to the review meeting approx 15 beforehand both the early years practitioner and the health professionals will meet to plan the joint meeting with the parent. During the joint meeting, both professionals will together complete the integrated review form. Feedback forms are completed at the end of the joint meeting by all involved.
To read a summary of this research click here or to read the full report click here
The Experiences of Practice series is designed to help all those working with young children, and those managing and designing services. It will enable all professionals to learn from the research carried out in Warwickshire and Islington