How is the lead professional identified?

A lead professional is identified from among the group of practitioners working with the child, young person or family. They are chosen through a process of discussion and agreement between those practitioners who are involved.

Practice suggests that it is important to have clear criteria for choosing lead professionals and a clear process to facilitate this. Disagreements or confusion are less likely when these are in place.

Such criteria could include:

• What are the predominant needs of the child or family?
• Which agency has main responsibility for addressing the child or family's needs, including statutory responsibility?
• Does anyone have a previous or potential ongoing relationship with the child or young person?
• Does anyone have an ongoing responsibility to carry out an advocacy role for the child or young person?
• Who has the skills and knowledge to provide a leadership and coordinating role in relation to other practitioners involved with the child, young person or family?
• Who has the ability to draw in and influence universal and specialist services?
• Who has an understanding of the surrounding support systems which are available to manage and sustain this?
• Who has capacity to take on the role?

Using a flexible system like this means that the lead professional will be the practitioner who is most relevant to the child or young person's support plan and who has the skills to carry out this role.

If it is not clear who is best placed to take on the role, it may be helpful to hold a case conferencing meeting to discuss the issue and find a solution. Alternatively managers may need to discuss the situation with service managers in partner agencies, to agree a strategic approach.

The successful delivery of a lead professional role is dependent on having a broad, cross-agency management framework in place which sets out:

• The line of accountability from the lead professional, through line management in their home agency, through coordinated arrangements in the children's trust and ultimately to the Director of Children's Services on behalf of the local authority
• Escalation/resolution processes for overcoming difficult issues and ensuring that lead professional support is put in place quickly

It is not practical to expect individual practitioners to be able to resolve difficult issues or draw together practitioners from other agencies without an effective management, supervisory, conflict resolution and accountability structure around them.

This could place undue pressure on those individuals and could also result in continuing fragmentation and inability to deliver coordinated action for children, young people and families.

Remember that lead professionals can change over time as the needs of the child or young person change.

See the full guidance document for more information on choosing the lead professional within the context of a cross-agency management framework.