1. Working in the New Environment
Patrick Ayre
University of Bedfordshire

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. Outcomes for children and young people
The big picture
Inter-Agency Governance
Integrated Strategy
Integrated Processes
Integrated Front-Line Delivery
Outcomes for children and young people
Families Community
Parents
Integrated Working
Silos
Implementing Integrated Working means implementing Integrated Processes and Integrated Front-Line Delivery

6. The vision for Integrated Working
Silos
Info Sharing
CAF LP
IS Index
Improved Outcomes

7. 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

8. 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
Information sharing between practitioners - supported by the Information Sharing Index
Lead professional from this point
Lead role already required by statute or best practice, e.g. key worker
Statutory or specialist assessments

9. Multi-agency services
Multi-agency panel 
Multi-agency team
Integrated services

10. How integrated are we going to be?

11. But how integrated is integrated?

12. But how integrated is integrated?

13. Multi-agency services
Multi-agency panel 
Multi-agency team
Integrated services

14. Panel characteristics
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

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. Benefits and opportunities
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.

24. 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

25. Challenges to effective inter-agency working
Relationship problems
Resource problems

26. Relationship problems
Closed professional systems and closed minds
Power struggles and polarisation
Exaggeration of hierarchy
Status insecurity
Sectors inadequately integrated

27. 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

28. Resource and practical problems
Challenges structural as well as case- based
At best, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, at worst, developing an unsustainable system?

29. The Child Safeguarding System (nominal)

30. The Child Safeguarding System (actual?)

31. Integrated Working?

32. Resource problems Few new resources?
Lack of motivation and practical commitment at individual and service level
Geographical location and accessibility

33. 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)

34. Overcoming the problems: Strategic
Common assessments
Collocation of staff,
Multi-disciplinary teams
Integrated training, pre- an post- qualification

35. 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”)

38. 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

39. 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

40. 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)

41. What works: Secondary prevention
“Effective children’s services require non-routinised, 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.

42. 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

43. 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