Birmingham ISA Project

Birmingham Information Sharing and Assessment Project

The project is intended to ensure better services for children and young people in Birmingham. It will establish Integrated Information Sharing systems for all young people (age 0 - 19) at risk of social exclusion, who may need services from any Birmingham agency, statutory or voluntary, at any stage in their lives. It is known that many children will need the support of one or more services before they reach adulthood.

Management of the Information Sharing and Assessment (IRT) Project is the responsibility of the Strategic Director, Learning and Culture (for Birmingham City Council Chief Executive) with an inter-agency steering group, which will report directly to the Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership. A Primary School Head Teacher is seconded to lead the project as the Project Manager and will be the first point of contact on day-to-day matters.

The key outcomes will be:

Integrated information systems to support service provision for young people
Young people will be supported by more integrated services
Better co-ordination between agencies
Corporate systems for monitoring young people who need services
A single assessment process

With the main areas of added value being:

Young people’s needs being dealt with holistically and more effectively by agencies
Improved ability to identify needs and gaps in provision, leading to improved targeting of services
Individual agencies having access to relevant information about needs identified in other agencies and services previously involved
Exchange of data between electronic databases supported by inter-agency protocols based on sound ethical and legal principles
Assistance to font line staff in the co-ordination of information systems to support identification and meeting needs
More efficient use of resources through reduction of duplication and wastage of resources
Service users freed from repeated requests for the same information
Support to the implementation of the Framework for Assessment of Children in Need
Capture and use of ` data’ to support service provision at critical times for young people.