Transcript Drugs, alcohol and safeguarding

Working in the
New Environment
Patrick Ayre
University of Bedfordshire
[email protected]
http://patrickayre.co.uk
Origins

Structural and organisational changes are
being delivered in the wake of Bichard and
Laming

Every Child Matters: Change for Children
(ECM: CfC) establishes a framework for
building services around children in which
previously separate services must now work
together in an integrated way

However, organisational change cannot of
itself bring about shifts in entrenched
attitudes, beliefs, customs and vocabulary.
Government’s prospectus

ECM: CfC is a new approach to the well-being of children
and young people from birth to age 19.
 The Government's aim is for every child, whatever their
background or their circumstances, to have the support
they need to:
– Be healthy
– Stay safe
– Enjoy and achieve
– Make a positive contribution
– Achieve economic well-being
 This means that the organisations involved with providing
services to children - from hospitals and schools, to police
and voluntary groups - will be teaming up in new ways,
sharing information and working together, to protect
children and young people from harm and help them
achieve what they want in life.
Government’s prospectus
Changes include
 the improvement and integration of universal
services
 more specialised help to promote opportunity,
prevent problems and act early and
effectively if and when problems arise;
 the reconfiguration of services in one place,
for example, children’s centres, extended
schools and the bringing together of
professionals in multi-disciplinary teams;
 the development of a shared sense of
responsibility across agencies
 listening to children, young people and their
families
The big picture
Outcomes
for children and
young people
Silos
Implementing Integrated Working means
implementing Integrated Processes and Integrated
Front-Line Delivery
The vision for Integrated Working
Improved
Outcomes
IS Index
LP
Silos
CAF
Info
Sharing
Key elements
Basic:
 Integrated working
 Common Assessment Framework
 Information sharing and ContactPoint
 Lead professional
Complex:
 Workforce reform and professional
development
 Common Core of Skills and Knowledge
 Setting up multi-agency services
Key elements
Setting up multi-agency services
 Common Assessment Framework
 Common Core of Skills and Knowledge
 Information sharing
 Lead professional
 Workforce reform and professional
development
 Integrated working

Common assessment
from this point
Lead professional from this point
Lead role already
required by statute
or best practice, e.g.
key worker
Statutory or
specialist
assessments
Information sharing between
practitioners - supported by the
Information Sharing Index
Multi-agency services
Multi-agency panel

 Multi-agency team

 Integrated services

How integrated are we going to be?
More
Collaboration
Less
Multi-agency teams
Joint funding
Integrated service
Frequent contact
Multi-agency panels
Co-operation
Deep
Some joint work
Token contact
Shallow
But how integrated is integrated?
More
All-purpose children's
workers in unitary services
Collaboration
Less
Differentiated
professions in silos
Shallow
Co-operation
Deep
But how integrated is integrated?
More
All-purpose children's
workers in unitary services
Collaboration
Less
Differentiated
professions in silos
Shallow
Co-operation
Deep
Multi-agency services
Multi-agency panel

 Multi-agency team

 Integrated services

Panel characteristics



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Managed by a coordinator or chair
There is a good mix of agencies
Panel members remain based in and identify
with their home agencies.
Regular meetings
May have a core team of key workers and
administrative support (YISP)
Practitioners are likely to focus on individual
support
Usually joint assessment and information
sharing
Benefits and opportunities

No recruitment or HR issues

Practitioners fully involved in home agency,
including training and development

Work together regularly and experience of
different working styles and remits.

Can allocate the lead professional role, give
authority needed, and share information

No need for a permanent base or IT
infrastructure.
Challenges

Focused on outcomes for the child or the
contribution of individual agencies?

Identify with home agency not panel.

Members not be given enough time to
carry out their casework and lead
professional responsibilities

Planning meetings can take up a
significant amount of time.
Multi-agency team characteristics

Dedicated team leader

Good mix of agencies

Members think of themselves as team members.
(Recruited or seconded into the team, either full
or part time)

Work with universal services and at a range of
levels – individual, small-group, family and whole
school

Likely to share a base

Regular team meetings: case working and
admin issues
Benefits and opportunities
Good sense of team identity.
 Co-working is at the heart of the team's
approach, allowing sharing of skills and
knowledge.
 Communication is straightforward.
 Joint training is easy to facilitate.
 Opportunities for preventive and early
intervention work in whole school and
early years settings, as well as small
group and individual casework.

Challenges
Recruitment and HR.
 Time and resource for team building
and development.
 If not based together, challenges for
team working and communication.
 Good relationships with schools and
other universal providers are vital.
 Need to set aside sufficient time for
meetings and other team contact time.

Integrated service characteristics
Range of services which share a
common location and a common
philosophy, vision and agreed principles
 Visible 'service hub' for the community,
with a perception by users of cohesive
and comprehensive services
 Management structure which facilitates
integrated working
 Commitment by partner providers to
fund and facilitate integrated services

Integrated service characteristics

Usually delivered from a school or early years
setting
 Staff work in a coordinated way, likely to
include joint training and joint working,
perhaps in smaller multi-agency teams
 Service level agreements set out the
relationship between home agencies and the
multi-agency service
 The manager may be a member of the school
or early years setting (for example a
headteacher) or they may be recruited
externally.
Integrated service characteristics
Services may include:
 high-quality, all-year-round, inclusive education, care
and personal development opportunities for children
and young people
 multi-agency teams to provide specialist advice and
guidance on aspects of health, social welfare and
employment
 outreach services to support local families with
additional needs
 a family support programme to involve and engage
parents
 a framework of training for adults providing a range of
informal and accredited courses
 a framework of training strategies for practitioners.
Benefits and opportunities

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Opportunity to address full range of issues in
a non-stigmatising universal setting.
Knock-on benefits for educational standards.
Greater co-working and cross-fertilisation of
skills between agencies.
Opportunities for joint training.
Shared base enhances communication
Members are still linked in to what is going on
in their home agency.
Members likely to have access to training and
personal development in their home agency.
Challenges
Requires fresh thinking around the
concept and purpose of the school or
early years setting
 Engaging partners and the whole school
community in 'collaborative leadership'.
 Sense of joint purpose so members
identify with new service not home
agency.
 Pay and conditions for staff doing joint
work at different levels of pay

Challenges to effective inter-agency
working

Relationship problems

Resource problems
Relationship problems

Closed professional systems and closed
minds

Power struggles and polarisation

Exaggeration of hierarchy

Status insecurity

Sectors inadequately integrated
Relationship problems

Acclimatisation and collusion

Stereotyping, lack of trust, lack of knowledge

Role confusion

Lost in translation
– Different professional cultures, values and
vocabulary (Who is the client? What are we trying
to achieve? What constitutes ‘good practice’?)

Different priorities and thresholds
Resource and practical problems

Challenges structural as well as casebased

At best, rearranging the deckchairs on
the Titanic, at worst, developing an
unsustainable system?
The Child Safeguarding System
(nominal)
The Child Safeguarding System
(actual?)
Integrated Working?
Resource problems

Few new resources?

Lack of motivation and practical
commitment at individual and service
level

Geographical location and accessibility
Resource problems

High staff turnover  paralysis
(Beckett)

Stress and overload  firefighting style,
reactive practice (Beckett)

Climate of blame, mistrust & fear distort
resource allocation (Ayre, 2001)
Overcoming the problems: Strategic

Common assessments

Collocation of staff,

Multi-disciplinary teams

Integrated training, pre- an postqualification
Overcoming the problems: Personal

Ask the ‘naïve’ question

Understand and value other
perspectives

Share knowledge about your own
agency, its priorities and values

Practice in an inclusive, interagency
manner (Not “me and them”, but “us”)
Interests
Hierarchy
Values
Fit with or competition
with other
priorities/pressures
Wider political context
Does the new thinking
fit?
Tradition
Structural/political
Cultural
Rigidity/flexibility
Change orientation
Likelihood that a
proposed change
will be accepted
into practice
Pow er of proposer
-compulsion
-monitoring
-other sources of pressure
Physical/financial
Resources
Status/legitimacy/
value
Personal
Personnel
Legitimacy, value and
perceived value of
this change
Interests
Experience
Personality
Factors affecting the likelihood that a proposed change will be accepted into practice within an organisation
Interests
Hierarchy
Values
Fit with or competition
with other
priorities/pressures
Wider political context
Does the new thinking
fit?
Tradition
Structural/political
Cultural
Rigidity/flexibility
Change orientation
Likelihood that a
proposed change
will be accepted
into practice
Pow er of proposer
-compulsion
-monitoring
-other sources of pressure
Physical/financial
Resources
Status/legitimacy/
value
Personal
Personnel
Legitimacy, value and
perceived value of
this change
Interests
Experience
Personality
Factors affecting the likelihood that a proposed change will be accepted into practice within an organisation
What works: Heavy end
Successful programmes draw on
ecological model of causes of neglect
and abuse
 Abuse results from

– Stresses caused by poverty and
disadvantage
– Poor social resources to manage those
stresses
– Personal difficulties with parenting
What works: Heavy end

Programmes combine
– Educational elements
– Social and emotional support
– Help to cope with stress

Success depend crucially on ability to
identify those factors which place
people at increased risk
What works: Secondary prevention
Outcomes more dependent on
organisational climate than methodology:
Low conflict
Co-operation
Role clarity
Personalisation of programmes
(Glisson and Hemmelgarn, 1998)
What works: Secondary prevention
“Effective children’s services require nonroutinised, individualised service decisions
that are tailored to each child”.
They require:
 flexibility and discretion,
 the ability to internalise and apply, not just to
follow, guidance.
 They cannot flourish without a positive work
climate.
What works: Secondary prevention
Home visiting is effective when:

The visitors are qualified or well-trained

The visiting is multi-dimensional,
intensive and long-term

Visits start before the child is born
What works: Secondary prevention
Effective parenting programmes:
 Are conducted on a group rather than
individual basis
 Are primarily behavioural rather than
based on relationship building
 Use modelling as a way of teaching
new skills
 Are seldom sufficient in themselves