Children's services leaders are calling on professionals across the sector to support social workers by making better use of the common assessment framework (CAF).
Their plea follows the publication of an evaluation by Loughborough University, funded by the Local Government Association (LGA), of Lord Laming's child protection proposals.
It found that professionals should be using CAF more often to identify children's needs, instead of simply referring cases to social care.
Andrew Cozens, strategic adviser for children, adults and health services at IDeA, said CAF was supposed to unify professionals across children's services, but progress had been patchy.
"Quite a lot of children have got stuck in CAF, as a way of holding their cases," he explained. "That is at least in part down to lead professionals being unwilling to take on cases."
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