New guidance for practitioners on the Integrated Review
Thursday, March 26, 2015
New guidance has been launched to support practitioners to deliver the Integrated Review for two-year-olds from September.
The National Children’s Bureau (NCB) guidance is intended to provide support to early years practitioners and health visitors as they prepare to deliver the new integrated reviews for two-year-olds.
Commissioned by the Department of Health (DoH), the guidance explains the purpose of the review and its benefits.
It also includes information on how to conduct the review, with examples of possible models to use – taken from the NCB’s evaluation of the pilot phase of the Integrated Review, along with details of how practitioners can support its key principles.
Coming in from September, the Integrated Review will bring together the Healthy Child Programme (HCP) health and development review, and the EYFS progress check currently used to assess children’s development at 24 to 36 months old and identify opportunities for early intervention.
Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau (NCB), said, ‘The integrated review will not just enable health professionals and early years staff to pool their understanding of how a child is progressing; crucially it should allow parents and children themselves to actively participate in the process.
‘We hope this guidance will help all professionals working with two-year olds get to grips with the new review system, so that children feel the benefit of a more joined-up way of working.’
Health minister Dr Daniel Poulter said, ‘This valuable new resource will support health visitors and early years practitioners to integrate health and early years reviews, which is better for children and their parents - giving a more complete picture of their child’s development and supporting children to get the best start in life.’
Childcare minister Sam Gyimah said, ‘No parent should be left in the dark about their child’s development. There should be an accessible check for all at the age of two, which is a pressure point where issues such as speech delay and behavioural problems begin to appear.
‘The Integrated Review will mean more families can get valuable information in a more convenient way.’
