Role, Significance and Impact of Multi-Agency Working in Childcare - Essay Example

Role, Significance and Impact of Multi-Agency Working in Childcare Multi-agency working has had a positive impact on children, young people and families. This has resulted in several positive outcomes in their lives overall. School staff working jointly with child and adolescent mental health services confirms that joint work leads to improved happiness and well-being in children (Improving outcomes for children 2007). Children are able to develop learning skills, leading to their improved academic achievements (Pettit, cited in Improving outcomes for children 2007). Marked improvement has also been noted in children's behaviour with better peer relationships. The different services involved in multi-agency working have experienced different positive outcomes in children and families following their interventions. In work with disabled children, families experience better relationships with services along with improved level of access to them and improved quality of life with reduced stress (Sloper, cited in Improving outcomes for children 2007). This is also true in the aspect of healthcare. In projects targeting mental health of children, there has been a reduction in the proportion of children with clinically significant problems, with children showing better involvement with school (Kurtz & James, cited in Improving outcomes for children 2007). Multi-agency working involves patient counselling, taking a great deal of time and care in dealing with children as well as parents when necessary. The counsellors are facilitators of information who helps sensitive sharing of information in a very respectful manner without violating confidentiality (McGinnis 2008, p.128). Collaborative working and information sharing among the different services is a key factor in enhancing children's welfare. Frequent and personal contacts of practitioners from different agencies with each other help resolve issues of concern (Cleaver et al. 2008, p.105). Collaborative working of services helps recognise the different needs of a child and the relationships between the different aspects of a child's life. Information sharing helps in early identification of children's additional needs to help them reach their potential. Identifying with parents and sharing information with them play a key role in understanding children and enhancing their well-being. Videotapes of children both at play and at work, at home and in school, can be exchanged which help to keep parents up-to-date on the children's progress as well as help staff to understand certain behaviour of children which they would have found difficult to comprehend. Information sharing also helps the staff in having an insight into the children's cultural background. This can help in the children's development in the cognitive and socio-behavioural aspects (Whalley & Dennison 2001, p.137). It is the goal of the Government that by 2010 all schools will provide access to a core offer of extended services including childcare, study support activities, parenting support and specialised support services with wider community access to information and communication technology, sports and arts facilities, and adult learning (Extended schools 2009). Extended support can bring about a significant improvement in children by identifying their individual problems, which they face outside of school and are intractable, and tackle them effectively, thus enabling teachers to give more attention to teaching. These services can also support parents through information sessions and parenting programmes, thus ensuring better parental involvement in the children's activities. Positive impact in preventative work Multi-agency involvement in preventative work has brought about positive results in children including improved behaviour, better relationships, enhanced education and increased well-being. The results of the On Track programme effectively demonstrate these effects. On Track is a research-based preventative programme for crime reduction, which through multi-agency partnerships delivers various services to children aged between 4 and 12 years and their families. The positive impacts on children from home-visiting interventions were identified as improved behaviour, improved school attendance, enhanced self-esteem/confidence, enhanced social interaction, and enhanced emotional well-being. There were health-related impacts also such as improved health and improved hygiene. The interventions rendered increased access to other services (Atkinson 2003, p.22). However, there was one negative impact on children associated with Home Visiting interventions in that the children tended to become dependent on the services offered. The major positive impacts these interventions had on parents and families were improved home management, enhanced confidence, improved family functioning, and improved relationships. Improved health was noted and also noted was enhanced emotional well-being of parents. An example was the reported case of improved well-being of a parent, who was susceptible to having panic attacks, even without the involvement of health professionals (Atkinson 2003, p.23). The interventions helped in reducing stress and helped improved management of children's behaviour. Cases have also been reported where these interventions have helped parents with learning difficulties improve their own reading and writing skills, and also helped the parents cope with their finances (Atkinson 2003, p.23). Dependency, like in children, was found to be a negative tendency even among parents and families, while there were some families who found these interventions intrusive. Home-School Partnership interventions were another category of intervention that was very well received by parents, children and teachers. These interventions addressed parenting deficiencies, home problems and poor relationships with schools. The impacts of these interventions on children were improved behaviour both in school and at home and improved attitude. The children liked being given strategies for managing their behaviour. There was enhanced well-being of the children along with better relationships. The children enjoyed school better through their work in the interventions and their improved perception of school made them feel safe at school (Hailes & Parsons 2003, p.32). Play activities helped children realise their talents and after-school clubs helped them learn new skills. The children became better able to express and cope with their feelings and problems. Increased attendance and improved punctuality was noted in school. Children were noted to have more self-confidence and self-esteem, all this leading to enhanced achievement in school. However, there were some children who saw interventions as a route to escape from school while there were some others who did not like the content of the interventions and found them boring (Hailes & Parsons 2003, p.35). On Track, with its Home-School Partnership interventions helped families to access various services. They helped parents improve their parenting skills enabling them to understand their children's behaviour better and to reduce conflicts within the family. The parents were better able to cope with their own issues and had improved self-esteem. There was improved communication and relationships between parents and school. The parents were also found to become mutually supportive. However, the difference in opinion among members of the family in approaching an issue sometimes caused friction within the family. Some parents had a negative feeling about the interventions as they felt interventions were for "bad" parents or "naughty" children, and this feeling was passed on to the children (Hailes & Parsons 2003, p.38). Improvements in behaviour in school and at home were noted by the Family Therapy services as well. Children were able to control their anger better, find alternative solutions to problems and deal with their situation better. Counselling helped them open out and express their feelings to someone who was sympathetic. This helped them understand and manage their own problems better. Significant improvement was noted in specific cases such as those where the children had been subjected to abuse or where they had specific problems like ADHD. Many of these children were able to avoid exclusion and remain in mainstream education. Only in cases where there was a lack of feedback, were the services doubtful of their impact on the children (Williamson 2003). The interventions helped the parents achieve more confidence in themselves and cope with difficult situations better. There was a positive change in their behaviour towards their children and they were calmer. There was improved communication within the family and between parents and schools. The report mentions a specific case where a father had been able to bring stability back into the lives of his children since his separation from his wife (Williamson 2003). Specialist interventions such as pastoral support, health adviser, speech and language therapy, child and adolescent mental health service and community police interventions had significantly positive impacts on children. Significant improvement was noted in children in the areas of well-being, behaviour and attitude. Social interactions and relationships were improved. Counselling helped the children gain enhanced confidence and do better work at school. The interventions taught the children strategies for controlling emotions like temper and helped them feel more secure and gain self-esteem (Stott 2003). The parents felt relieved at getting help and more reassured about their problems. The parents were more aware of their children's activities at school and there were improved family relationships. They felt increased self-esteem and reduced stress (Stott 2003). In pre-school and nursery years, parent partnership plays a very important role in the behaviour of the children and their acceptance of the setting. This also helps in parents having a positive attitude towards the setting. This helps in creating a continuity between home and the nursery, which helps children see less of a divide between them. Parent partnership helps the practitioners have a better understanding of the family and its culture (Fitzgerald 2004, p.11). Working towards more effective multi-agency partnership At entry level to school, children who receive early childhood care show better cognitive and socio-behavioural outcomes than children who have received no early childhood care or pre-school experience. The more pre-school experience a child has, the more progress he or she makes in the 3 to 5-year period. However this impact does not sustain and carry through to the subsequent years (Sylva & Taylor 2006, p.173). Children who got an earlier start in pre-school experience perform better. The quality of the setting attended by the children has a significant impact on the benefits they gain. A setting where children come from diverse social backgrounds can have a positively significant impact on children (Sylva & Taylor 2006, p.174). According to the Program for International Student Assessment conducted by the OECD, UK ranked among the leading countries, however, it remains a fact that the disparities among students are wide with evidence that the disparities are getting wider (Davies, Ellison & Bowring-Carr 2005, p.186). In order to close the gap between current achievement and the level of expectation, positive transformation is necessary in the field of education and all others that play a significant role in the enhancement of child welfare, in the public as well as private sectors across the community. Improving transition and transfer for children with learning difficulties and disabilities can be really traumatic for them, which can be made easier by making them active participants with personalised learning and flexible curriculum pathways along with improved, joined-up, coordinated multi-agency partnership to render specialist services more effective. Partnership with parents and carers should be strengthened to ensure and value their contribution to the joint working (Cheminais 2007, p.71). School communities are diverse communities where there is interaction among parents, carers, pupils, staff and governors, a lot of whom come from different cultures, and different ethnic, religious and socio-economic groups (Briefing for Heads n.d., p.1). The children face several issues in addition to disabilities and learning and other difficulties that impair their education. Strong multi-agency working has an important role to play here towards positive and effective community cohesion along with mental, physical and spiritual development of the pupils and promotion of equality of opportunity and better relationships. Social capital is an explanatory variable of the success, or the lack of it, of multi-agency approaches (Munn 2000, p.175). Social capital refers to relationships within and among social networks as well as among individuals. Social capital can be used as a tool in creating higher expectations of education for the students as well as development in other fields. According to Lloyd (2006, p.319), to tackle social exclusion among children and one of its root causes, child poverty, four basic categories of population have to be provided help, namely, families with children, families or parents with disabilities, families with children who have disabilities and minority ethnic and lone-parent families. However, the multi-agency working is not devoid of disadvantages. Joint working can be time-consuming with the underlying danger of duplication without effective coordination and information-sharing, in addition to management problems and those related to maintaining professional identities (Pettitt, cited in Hughes 2009, p.66). The high level of turnover in staff in the services affects continuity of interventions and results in the partnerships of the services being less successful than expected. This is caused, among the other reasons, by the increased stress and increased demands on staff time. Multi-agency working involves decisions being taken in different places at different points in time, which can also cause difficulties. Collaborative working requires both formal and informal structures of support. The absence of either can negatively impact the effectiveness of the working (Cigno and Gore, cited in Collaborative leadership n.d., p.15). These difficulties can be overcome by establishing an inter-agency strategic planning forum, a team leader to co-ordinate the activities of the agencies, regular operational team meetings where policies and procedures will be reviewed, and full and thorough involvement of the parents in the partnership (Collaborative leadership n.d., p.14). Some other factors that would ensure success of the collaborative working are shared aims and objectives of the members, clarity of vision and purpose, clearly defined roles of members, equality and democracy among groups, effective human resource management, encouragement of skills and development of the members, good communication, appropriate risk management, regular review and monitoring of activities and data, etc. (Collaborative leadership n.d., p.16). Joint training for team members can help them understand each other's roles, help them jointly develop new roles, help them team build and promote mutual trust and help develop a common language (Watson 2006, p.20). The team strategy should include time for reflecting on the problems presented before prescribing solutions to them (Hymans 2006, p. 30). This emphasises the importance of good practice, individual efforts and participation, sharing of values, enhancing trust and commitment, and regular review to monitor and improve performance. When working together, every service should consider whether its goals and principles fit with the other systems that it works with and seek their feedback (Barclay & Kerr 2006, p. 44). Furthermore, organisational perspective alone cannot ensure better services for children without taking into account individual professional positions. The organisational setting should be made positive so as to encourage practitioner improvisation (Leadbetter 2006, p.57). This can create new professional identities that find new ways of dealing with issues and new ways of distribution of expertise and make new changes. Conclusion Children are competent learners and they learn and develop in different ways. It is important to study their needs, interests and stages of development carefully and use this information to ensure that they have a challenging and enjoyable experience in all aspects of learning and development (Learning and development 2007). In childcare and when working with the family, it is important to take a holistic approach, understanding that there is no single agency that can meet all the needs and resolve all the issues of children and adults (Children in need 2009). Effective multi-agency working is essential with collaborative relationships among professionals of the different services. When dealing with problems, the family should be considered as a whole, looking both at the parents' and children's situations, encouraging open and frank interactions and finding simple and effective solutions. In situations where there is a likelihood of domestic violence or such other concerns, the risks to the concerned parties should be clearly assessed, informed and minimised. Information should be provided with regard to access to support services. Multi-agency working helps improve children's well-being by increasing their self-esteem, self-awareness and self-confidence, reducing fear of failure, improving relationships and peer acceptance, enhancing educational accomplishments and focusing on the needs and weaknesses of children (Pugh & Stattham n.d., pp.287). Multi-agency working can make significant contributions to the care and development of children and young people by addressing risk factors that deter their overall development in a timely and effective manner in a streamlined way. References Atkinson, M. 2003, 'Home Visiting', in M. Atkinson, K. Kinder & P. Doherty (eds), On Track: A qualitative study of the early impacts of services, ISBN 1 84478 087 2, Department for Education and Skills, Queen's Printer, Norwich NR3 IBQ, pp.21-30, viewed 11 February 2009, http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR473.doc Barclay, G. & Kerr, C. 2006, 'Collaborative working across children's services: Where are we now', Educational & Child Psychology, vol. 23, no. 4, pp.35-46, viewed 17 February 2009, http://www.bps.org.uk/downloadfile.cfmfile_uuid=0287D0D2-1143-DFD0-7EBC-DED82404C114&ext=pdf#page=25 Briefing for Heads and Chairs of Governors on the new community cohesion duties, n.d., viewed 16 February 2009, http://www.bristol-cyps.org.uk/services/pdf/eit-comm-cohesion-duties.pdf Caldwell, B. J. 2005, 'The transformation of schools in the twenty-first century', in B. Davies, L. Ellison, & C. Bowring-Carr, School leadership in the 21st century: Developing a strategic approach, Routledge, pp.185-205, viewed 15 February 2009, http://books.google.co.in/booksid=Rs5IfXxu6AsC&dq=davies+school+leadership+21st+century&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=80L3hKRivc&sig=2a_8DCJPGPCQy3Rz4D6i_fpa-Wg&hl=en&ei=Yh-YSbqoF4bRkAX8_Zm5Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PRA1-PA186,M1 Cheminais, R. 2007, 'The Every Child Matters evidence descriptors for the twelve standards', How to achieve the Every Child Matters standards: A practical guide, SAGE, pp.70-97, viewed 16 February 2009, http://books.google.co.in/booksid=0ia-xgfNy-EC&pg=PA71&dq=multi-agency+working+parents#PPA71,M1 Children in need handbook 2009, viewed 16 February 2009, http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathNES/healthandsocial/childrenandfamilycare/childreninneed/Childreninneedhandbook-5.3DomesticViolence%E2%80%93Multi-agencyPracticeGuidance.htm Cleaver, H., Walker, S., Scott, J., Cleaver, D., Rose, W., Ward, H. & Pithouse, A. 2008, 'Impact of the integrated children's system on inter-agency working', The integrated children's system: Enhancing social work recording and inter-agency practice, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, pp.100-118, viewed 15 February 2009, http://books.google.co.in/booksid=pEjyoY3V21AC&dq=cleaver+walker+integrated+children's+system&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=-ZQ_CysZYN&sig=nNhv1wVx87qwX-DLxFs7yicCH_I&hl=en&ei=__-XSdrTF9W4kAW-lbWoCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA105,M1 Collaborative leadership in extended schools n.d., viewed 17 February 2009, http://lmscontent.ncsl.org.uk/ECM/documents/105/Collaborative_Leadership_in_extended_schools_p13.pdf Extended schools: Schools in special measures 2009, viewed 16 February 2009, http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/sie/si/SCC/ext/ Fitzgerald, D. 2004, 'Partnership with parents', Parent partnership in the early years, Continuum International Publishing Group, pp.7-26, viewed 17 February 2009, http://books.google.co.in/booksid=huJlZqYrKt8C&dq=fitzgerald+parent+partnership&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=MKMYG4YE-a&sig=CIso5fwN95NGLS8N743vfj6pEqI&hl=en&ei=sLqZSdnoBobRkAXU_IG5Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA11,M1 Hailes, J. & Parsons, C. 2003, 'Home-school Partnerships', in M. 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Duffy, Contemporary issues in the early years, SAGE, pp.165-180, viewed 17 February 2009, http://books.google.co.in/booksid=P291eeKQMgEC&dq=pugh+gillian+contemporary+issues&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=DFaaSYeCLIm9kAXy7MGaCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA173,M1 Watson, H. 2006, 'Facilitating effective working in multi-agency co-located teams', Educational & Child Psychology, vol. 23, no. 4, pp.8-22, viewed 17 February 2009, http://www.bps.org.uk/downloadfile.cfmfile_uuid=0287D0D2-1143-DFD0-7EBC-DED82404C114&ext=pdf#page=25 Whalley, M. & Dennison, M. 2001, 'Dialogue and documentation: sharing information and developing a rich curriculum', in M. Whalley (ed), Involving parents in their children's learning, SAGE, pp.135-155, viewed 17 February 2009, http://books.google.co.in/bookshl=en&id=0A3Mj3g8mwYC&dq=whalley+involving+parents&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=l-uwWBqBlh&sig=48Q3J_UviPd0HgSeXuDNZRHhvn4&ei=IF2aSYaeI5z-7AO2uKnzCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA137,M1 Williamson, H. 2003, 'Family Therapy', in M. Atkinson, K. Kinder & P. Doherty (eds), On Track: A qualitative study of the early impacts of services, ISBN 1 84478 087 2, Department for Education and Skills, Queen's Printer, Norwich NR3 IBQ, pp.48-58, viewed 11 February 2009, http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR473.doc Read More