Article: Integrated Processes Article Body Developing common processes across partner agencies will be a major step towards improving outcomes for children, young people and families. By doing this, practitioners working with families will be adopting the same methods for assessing need, and following the same principles for sharing information about the families they are supporting. Improving information sharing is a cornerstone of the Every Child Matters strategy and fundamental to the common assessment. For intervention to happen at an early stage, all practitioners working with a child or young person must be fully aware of their circumstances. It is vital, therefore, that practitioners understand, when, why and how they should share information, in the child/young person's best interest, so that they can do this confidently as part of their everyday practice. To make sure this happens locally, all partner agencies working with children and young people have agreed to share information legally and professionally within and across agency boundaries. The Common Assessment Framework is being embedded as the standardised approach to conducting an assessment of a child/young person's additional needs and deciding how those needs should be met. The CAF Co-ordinators are making vital links with practitioners, partners, and schools to offer advice, guidance and training to support the implementation of CAF.