This essay will explore how innovations in theory, policy and research have influenced the development of coordination, partnership and integration in childhood practice in Scotland.
NSPCC are a leading children’s charity fighting to end child abuse in the UK and have done so since 1884. Their work and research has resulted in many new policies being put in place which has influenced the way professionals need to work to ensure that all work in partnership. The NSPCC’s core values are based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which more than 195 countries have signed up to.
The Scottish Executive Child Protection Audit and Review 2002 along with many other studies and inquiries found the lack of information sharing among agencies and within agencies and poor assessment processes contributed to children not being protected.
Reports on high profile cases of child abuse such as Caleb Ness and Victoria Climbie highlighted the lack of information sharing mainly by the health professionals involved. These cases introduced changes in the laws. These changes were meant to ensure that this didn’t happen again. However, in the Brandon Muir case which made the headlines in 2009, it became apparent that there is still a problem in this area of child protection that needs to be addressed. Maria Colwell’s death over 35 years ago highlighted that there was ‘poor communication, lack of sharing information co-ordination and co-operation between agencies’. (Fitzgerald and Kay 2008; 28) Unfortunately, this is still occurring years later. All of these cases have led to new laws and recommendations being put into place so that all professionals have a framework in which to work. The question still needs to be asked, why do some professionals communicate well and others do not? This can only be examined after professionals critically look at themselves and their own beliefs. What professionals can take from the reports in the deaths of Brandon Muir, Caleb Ness and Victoria Climbie will go some way to ensure that changes can be made and that future working in partnership is successful, although this will not be an easy job. All professionals need to be committed to effective collaboration at every level.
When services are not integrated and working together, then goals cannot be achieved effectively. The integrated children’s service agenda is driven by a shared vision for children and young people. For children to become confident individuals, effective contributors, successful learners and responsible citizens, all Scottish children and young people need to be safe, nurtured, healthy, achieving, active, respected, responsible and included (Scottish Executive 2005). This reinforces the Curriculum for Excellence’s four capacities for children, previously mentioned.
The Scottish Government wants Scotland to be the best place in the world for children to grow up. A place where their rights are respected and where children can get the support and help when they need it and to be able to have opportunities available to them. This relates to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which sets outs the rights of all children and young people which has had an impact on all policies that have been developed and practices of professionals.
The Children’s Charter was written in 2004 and detailed what Scotland’s children and young people need and what they can expect to help protect them when they are in danger of being, or already have been, harmed by another person. Children and young people are central to Getting It Right For Every Child (Scottish Government 2008), which seeks to put in place a Scotland-wide approach to adopting the Children’s Charter through practical support tools, guidance and, where necessary, legislation to ensure we all work together for Scotland’s children/young people.
Getting It Right For Every Child (will now be referred to as GIRFEC) wants every child to be fully supported and above all to be safe. (Scottish Government 2008) This document has arisen from national thinking. It is about improving practice and gaining better outcomes for children. This is not just about child protection but the whole of a child’s life to ensure they and their families get the help when they need it and that agencies work together to do this. It reflects what the Children’s Charter says and is line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child all of which are only trying to ensure the best for children. You could say with all the investigations that have been carried out into child abuse Kobl’s idea of reflective practice looks at experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning but deliberate reflection on experience is essential. The government is using the investigations to develop new policies and asking us as professional to look at our practices and reflect on what we are doing.
GIRFEC is ensuring that all practitioners can use the National Practice Model when assessment, planning and action are needed. It brings in the core values and principles by being appropriate, proportionate and timely. The Wellbeing Wheel along with the My World Triangle framework provides a structure for gathering, analysing information and focusing on outcomes using the 8 wellbeing indicators – Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included (SHANARRI). It ensures the child is looked at holistically and what children need from people who look after them. These should ensure better outcomes are achieved for our children. It charges everyone to ask the same five key questions these are : What is getting in the way of this child’s or young person’s wellbeing? Do I have all the information I need to help this child or young person?
What can I do now to help this child or young person? What can my agency do to help this child or young person? What additional help, if any, may be needed from others?
The Named Person is a key element of GIRFEC. For under 5’s it will usually be the health visitor thus ensuring that there is a point of contact for every child and their parents/carers as well as concerned professionals to enable wellbeing concerns to be considered and appropriate action taken quickly and at an early stage. This can only be better for children and parents alike. Although health visitors are often the people who do not disclose all the facts they may have about families. It must be remembered that the Data Protection Act 1998 is not a barrier to sharing information. It provides a framework to ensure that personal information about living persons is shared appropriately. Where there is reasonable evidence to believe a child is at risk or to prevent significant harm this can be through the prevention, detecting or someone being prosecuted. Practitioners need to decide whether information sharing is a necessary response to protect the child and what might happen if they don’t.
Margaret Hodge described the relationship between different children’s agencies as follows ‘That sort of lack of mutual trust and respect for the different professional backgrounds – not sharing the same vocabulary and language; certainly not sharing the same sort of understanding of child development and child protection – is an enormous problem. Changing that culture so that people value each other’s professional competence and recognise each other’s work is a hugely difficult and complex thing to achieve’. (Fitzgerald & Kay 2008 29)
From 2016 the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 enforces that the named person takes concerns seriously and reports as required. The act also increased the amount and flexibility of funded early learning and childcare hours to 600 hours for children. The government has committed to providing 600 hours of free Early Learning and Childcare for eligible two years olds whose parents meet certain benefits criteria or are looked after or with kinship careers. Within my local area hubs have been set up where professionals are working in the same building so there are more opportunities for collaboration.
Collaboration is the key to successfully integrated services. All staff have to be committed to integrated working with managers playing a key role. Integrated teams need to share common objectives and aims and agree everyone’s responsibilities within the team. Working together improves collaboration but there should still be a need for professionals to meet and improve communication. This is also more useful to parents where they can access lots of people and services in the one place and also for professionals to point parents to the right person to help them.
Wenger’s communities of practice and communities of interest fits with what could be classed as network meeting. Task groups no matter what name they are given are all trying to encapsulate what all the different legislations and policies are aiming for – getting people to talk to each other and share practice in the best interest of children through bringing professionals together who have a common concern or a passion for their job, learn to do it better as well as helping develop relationships between the group members. They also have a focus to ensure a task is completed and to share practice, skills and experiences which others can learn from and support each other.
Wenger’s (2000) idea is that learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are. It is a framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation.
Children benefit from all types of early years provision but integrated care and education centres have been shown to improve their behavior, social skills and learning. Children who gain most from an integrated service include those at risk of neglect and abuse and those who attend such centres at an early age.
Centres where many different professionals work together is the key to
successfully integrated services. Working together improves collaboration but there should still be other opportunities for professionals to meet and improve communication. There are several problems that could hinder the successful integration of services, it could be due to management or supervision. At all levels, trust and communication are key to effective working and without provision for face-to-face contact through meetings, training and shared offices as well as joining forces, in service planning, development and delivery it can fail. Blurring in professional boundaries and lack of trancparency around roles and responsibilities is also often mentioned as a barrier to integrated working. The importance of clear aims and objectives that are realistic, achievable and understood and accepted by all the partners.
Within child care, it is an ever evolving working arrangement and professionals continually face challenges in their work with children when new legislation is announced from the government which then requires the local authority to make changes to their policies. This information then has to be cascaded to the workers on the front line. This requires training to take place and everyone to be brought on board. When attending training with other groups an understanding into their ways of working and an understanding of the work with different agencies is gained. Childhood practice is going to continue to evolve and over the next few years services are going to be more integrated rather than less integrated.
This will also encourage professionals to work together to support the children and meet their individual needs.
Where people work together Belbin Team Roles are important to think about as it looks at the behavioral strengths and weaknesses. This can be used to build a productive working relationship, raise awareness and effectiveness and is not dissimilar to that of Wenger. Although this is harder when the team changes where an organisation sends a different representative to meetings about children, or where they are not working together on a regular basis you find that there is not always the same people attending regularly.
GIRFEC and It’s Everyone’s job to make sure I’m alright are key to ensuring that Scotland is the best place for children to grow up and we as professionals need to be ever watchful and continually look at what we are doing. We need to ensure that as well as working in partnership with other professionals that parents are also included in the partnership.
This essay set out to look at how innovations in theory, policy and research have influenced the development of coordination, partnership and integration in childhood practice in Scotland. It has looked at various policies that have had a great impact on how we work within the childcare profession and how theory and research has influenced these policies and practices through encouraging professionals to work together.
Reference
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Scottish Executive (2002). “It’s everyone’s job to make sure I’m alright” Report of the Child Protection Audit and Review. Edinburgh: The Scottish Office Bookshop.
Scottish Executive (2004). ‘Protecting Children and Young People – The Charter’. Available: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2004/04/19082/34410 Last accessed 20th October 2015.
Scottish Government. (2014). Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. Available: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2014/8/pdfs/asp_20140008_en.pdf. Last accessed 18th October 2015.
Wenger E (2000). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, And Identity (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives). Cambridge: University Press