School Business Director Programme
Leadership Development Elective Module
Leading beyond the school and developing social partnerships
Unit 3Leading multi-agency working
Contents
1.Unit overview
2.Introduction
3.Language and terminology
4.Development of multi-agency working
5.Benefits of multi-agency working
6. Barriers to multi-agency working
7.Challenges of multi-agency working
8.Challenge – creating a climate for change
9.Challenge - creating effective cross-sector collaboration
10.Challenge - establishing a sense of moral purpose
11.Challenge – look inwards, look outwards?
12.Conclusion
13. References
Unit 3Leading multi-agency working
1.Unit Overview
This briefing paper is intended to help you get to grips with the area of study covered by the unit. It gives you an insight into the key debates and developments taking place in the area of study.
This unit offers an exploration of what is involved in developing effective multi-agency provision. It starts out by briefly reviewing the historical context, and explores the different kinds of multi-agency collaborative arrangements.
Upon successful completion of this unit you will be expected to be able to:
Articulate the potential challenges and benefits of multi-agency working
Review approaches to leading multi-agency teams
Demonstrate an understanding of multi-agency partnership developm
As you work through the unit you will find it useful if you:
apply the key concepts to your own experience of working in multi-agency settings;
analyse your observations of partnership development in practice;
consider the implications for your own career development;
reflect on the potential benefits to you and your organisation of developing your skills in this area
2.Introduction
Timothy Winters
Timothy Winters comes to a school
With eyes as wide as a football pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters;
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.
His belly is white, his neck is dark,
His hair is an exclamation mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.
When teacher talks he won’t hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the pattern off his plate
And he’s not even heard of the Welfare State.
Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor
And they say there aren’t boys like him anymore.
Old man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with the bombardier
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy’s dosed with aspirin.
The Welfare Worker lies awake
But the law’s as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.
At morning prayers the headmaster helves
For children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars ‘Amen!’
So come one angel, come on ten:
Timothy Winters says ‘Amen!’
Amen amen amen amen.
Timothy Winters, Lord.
Amen.
Charles Causley, 1917
(from Heaney & Hughes, 1987)
This unit examines what is involved in developing effective multi-agency partnerships and considers the benefits of multi-agency working, as well as the significant challenges. This and the next unit challenge the reader to consider the structures, systems, processes and capacities necessary for organisations and leaders seeking to manage a delicate interplay between looking inward, to ensure the organisation provides its ‘core service’ and looking outward, to ensure that its service provision is part of a joined-up system.
Coleman (2006), reviewing the development of Extended Schools concludes:
‘...... if leading a conventional school is complex, leading an extended school working with different agencies is even more complicated.’ (2006: 66)
He points out that there are many layers of complexity which go beyond the obvious requirements of bringing together different service cultures, structures and organisational forms. Multi-agency working starts to raise questions which are both profound and fundamental:
- What is the purpose of ‘the school’?
- What does it mean to be ‘a professional’?
Schools operating in a multi-agency environment are, almost by definition, in a state of flux. They are constructing new models of service provision with few blueprints. Indeed, it may be argued that the leaders of these organisations will need to develop service cultures in which the capacity to adapt to changing community and social needs will be an essential pre-requisite for all who work there.
‘Leadership exists where people are no longer victims of circumstances but participate in creating new circumstances . . . it’s not about position or power; it’s not about accomplishments; it’s ultimately not even about what we do. Leadership is about creating a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world. Leadership is about creating new realities.’ (Senge, 1996: 206)
Coleman (2006) argues that successful multi-agency working will require leaders:
- who understand and can implement successful change leadership models
- with a genuine commitment to distributed leadership, both within the school and beyond
- who have a sense of moral purpose
- with a strong commitment to the development of social capital
- who understand and can manage the political environment
- who have many of the attributes associated with entrepreneurship
- who are able to focus more on ‘bridging’ than ‘bonding’
These demands may sound Herculean, but these are the expectations on schools and their role in multi-agency work.
Activity 1: Multi-agency working and school business management
Coleman (2006) asks us to consider two questions:- What is the purpose of ‘the school’?
- What does it mean to be ‘a professional’?
You may find it valuable to engage in discussion on this topic with other participants on the SBD community page.
3.Language and terminology
The range and type of multi-agency working, and the words used to describe them, can be confusing even to experts in the field. The following definitions from Frost (2005: 13) provide an insight into the conceptual complexity:
Joined-up refers to overcoming existing professional and institutional barriers that impede seamless or even adequate services to families and communities.
Multi-disciplinary or inter professional working refers to a team of individuals with different professional training backgrounds who share common objectives, but who make a different but complementary contribution to a service.
Multi-agency or inter-agency refers to individuals or teams from different agencies who:
co-operate – services work together towards consistent goals and complementary services while maintaining their independence
collaborate – services plan and address issues of overlap, duplication and gaps in service provision towards common outcomes
co-ordinate – services work together in a planned manner towards shared and agreed goals
4.The development of multi-agency working
We might start by posing the question, Why is there a push for multi-agency co-operation and integration of services for children and their families? The answer lies in failures of communication between professionals and across agencies. This was most tragically exposed in the area of child protection. The following quotation from the Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report (Laming, 2003) echoes the findings of public inquiries into child
deaths over many decades:
It is deeply disturbing that, during the days and months following her initial contact with Ealing Housing Department’s Homeless Person’s Unit, Victoria was known to no less than two further housing authorities, four social services departments, two child protection teams of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), a specialist centre managed by the NSPCC, and she was admitted to two different hospitals because of suspected deliberate harm. The dreadful reality was that these services knew little or nothing more about Victoria at the end of the process than they did when she was first referred to Ealing Social Services by the Homeless Person’s Unit in April 1999. The final irony was that Haringey Social Services formally closed Victoria’s case on the day she died. The extent of the failure to protect Victoria was lamentable. Tragically, it required nothing more than basic good practice being put into operation. This never happened.
(Laming, 2003: 3)
‘I am in no doubt that effective support for children and families cannot be achieved by a single agency alone. It depends on a number of agencies working well together. It is a multi-disciplinary task.’ (Laming, 2003: 6)
Lord Laming’s findings were not new, but they provided the impetus for a wide-ranging set of policy measures. Every Child Matters (2003) was a main focus for the Labour Government, but has since ceased to be government policy. Other policy measures have included development of Safeguarding Boards, Extended Schools, Children’s Centres, Intensive Intervention Programmes, Youth Advisory Boards and the decentralisation by many local authorities of service provision for education and social services to neighbourhood groups or clusters. The role of schools and other agencies in child protection and safeguarding is still a focus of significant public concern.
The Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) (2010) produced a wealth of data on progress towards integrated working and their research indicated that at that date:
Most local areas (65 per cent) have now set up effective team(s) around the child (TAC), and some have established other types of multi agency team.
Multi-agency teams were more likely to be virtual than co-located.
Those working in social care, youth offending, education, the third sector and sport, play and leisure were more likely to be part of a co-located multi-agency team.
CWDC (2010) provide a more refined typology of multi-agency provision, shown in Figure 1 below:
(the statistics refer to the % of LAs with each model, some LAs operate more than one model).
Models of Multi-Agency ProvisionModel / %
Team around the child / 65
Local multi-agency team / 44
Virtual multi-agency team / 39
Mixed multi-agency team / 34
Mixed multi-agency locality team / 31
Fig 1Adapted from CWDC (2010), P10
Flint et al (2013: 36) provides an excellent diagram which indicates the complexities and interactions of multi- agency working. (NB for insertion here as Figure 2: Influences and interactions of multi-agency working – see attached PDF)
5.Benefits of multi-agency working
The perceived benefits of multi-agency working go beyond avoiding a repetition of the tragic events surrounding the death of Victoria Climbie. The DfE policy perspective is that multi-agency working provides 3 types of benefit:
• Improving outcomes for children and young people
• Benefits for staff and services
• Providing families with what children, young people and their families say they want
There is a growing body of research to support the claims the DfE makes. Halsey et al (2005), reviewing the work of Behaviour and Education Support Teams (BEST), observed that:
The range of professional backgrounds of the staff appointed to the team was identified as a particularly effective element of the development and operation of BESTs. Interviewees described how individual team members’ roles and backgrounds complemented each other and enabled them to work together creatively by drawing on each others’ experiences.
(Halsey et al, 2005: 54)
Tresder et al (2003), researching how to 'improve service delivery to families with complex needs', concluded that:
The main message that has emerged from the Action Research Groups is that the opportunity to meet in a multi-agency group, exchange information and engage in reflective discussion has contributed to successful outcomes with families.
(Tresder et al, 2003: 22)
And CWDC, in their ‘Progress Towards Integrated Working’ found that:
Most respondents said that they had some evidence of improvement in child outcomes as a result of integrated working: 67 per cent said that this evidence was qualitative; 50 per cent reported that they had quantitative evidence3 and a small number described having anecdotal evidence.
(CWDC, 2010)
As Coleman (2006) observes ‘multi-agency collaborations are viewed as essential in addressing issues that require a multi-dimension, holistic response’. Underpinning this belief is the ‘the notion of collaborative advantage’, which at its simplest means that agencies working together to respond to problems will have greater effects than working alone (Paton and Vangen, 2004:2). We will return to the theory of collaborative advantage in the next unit.
Further benefits identified as arising from multi-agency working include:
Shared professional development and expertise
Resource economies
Increase in social capital
Improved division of labour
C4EO (2011: 20) identified the following factors that are likely to support effective multi-agency working:
getting to know practitioners from other agencies better
developing mechanisms for communication and exchanging information
clarifying roles and boundaries
getting family members involved
increased multi-disciplinary training
dissemination of findings of research and serious case reviews
co-location of staff such as health visitors and social workers.
A word of caution. Whilst there are a number of studies pointing to the successes of multi-agency working, the evidence base is still small and we need to exercise caution in coming to judgements because:
There are methodological difficulties in measuring impacts
Many initiatives are relatively new
The intended outcomes of programmes may only be measured in the longer term eg changed attitudes to key social agencies
6.Barriers to multi-agency working
Establishing effective multi-agency provision is challenging, and leaders working in this arena have many complex issues to resolve. As you read the literature on multi-agency working and investigate case studies you will come across many lists of the barriers or challenges, such as this one provided by Sloper (2004), who draws on a number of studies to identify barriers to multi-professional working:
Lack of clarity regarding roles and responsibilities
Differences in organizational aims, lack of consensus on aims or overambitious aims
Lack of commitment and support from senior management
Poor communication and information sharing
Inadequate or incompatible IT systems
Inadequate resources and lack of joint budgets
Lack of ongoing training
Lack of leadership
Lack of time for joint working
Negative professional stereotypes and lack of trust and understanding between individuals and agencies
Constant reorganization
Frequent staff turnover
Lack of qualified staff
Financial uncertainty, difficulties sustaining initiatives when funding ceased and difficulties in ensuring equity from partner agencies.
Different professional ideologies and agency cultures.
The list is exhausting, and we could add other challenges to it. On closer inspection this list, and other similar lists, can be reduced to smaller number of generic leadership challenges.
Interestingly, Easton et al (2013) in their case studies identified that, although schools were a key point of contact with many young people, a number of the case study interviewees identified that they found ‘that schools and health partners were not engaging as much as other agencies’ (2013: 27) and that they ‘wanted commitment from some key sectors (such as schools and businesses) to get involved’ (2013: 20).
Hudson et al (1999) point out:
The literature constantly focuses on barriers to collaboration including structural, professional, financial, status and legitimacy factors
They go on to argue, however, that these are largely secondary issue because
inter-organisational relationships are largely built on human relationships.‟ (Hudson et al, 1999).
As you work through the literature on multi-agency working, you will find discussion and focus swinging widely from the practical, but important, operational matters:
The main challenges to working with a range of service providers were: adapting to different working arrangements and personnel in school; finding the space to accommodate services on site; duplication of, and working beyond, service remits; time; and tensions around funding. (Howard, 2007)
to deeper philosophical leadership challenges:
A particularly challenging aspect of this whole area is that.....cultural differences are often extremely subtle and remain uncodified (Coleman, 2006)
Thus the leaders of these ‘new contexts’ need to learn a new language and skills; they will no longer will lead single-site enterprises. They may be responsible, in some way, for co-located services. They may be required to lead, or contribute to, the management of a workforce which rarely meets physically and yet has to work seamlessly.
Activity 3: Reviewing your school’s current level of engagement with multi-agency workingRefer to the following research reports which are to be found in this unit’s learning resources:
Flint et al, (2013) Evaluation of intensive intervention projects DFE-RR113, Sheffield : Sheffield University
McInnes, K, (2007), A practitioner’s guide to interagency working in children’s centres: a review of literature. Barnardos.
C4EO, (2011), Getting better? Improving outcomes for children and young people - Research messages for the health service. London: C4EO.
To what extent does your school engage with multi-agency working?
What do you perceive are the benefits to the school?
What do you perceive are the barriers?
7.The challenges of multi-agency working
Coleman (2006: 20) identifies these challenges for leaders in multi-agency settings. He presents his findings using Kotter’s (2002) model for organisational change
Creating a climate for change
(a) Establishing the sense of urgency and developing a vision for change
(b) Establishing relationships with partners
Engaging and enabling the whole organisation