WANDSWORTH BOROUGH COUNCIL

Children’s Services Department

School Based Multi-agency planning meetings (MAP)

Introduction

1. The five outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda are more likely to be achieved if effective processes are in place to enable early identification of children and young people in need of additional support. Co-ordinating and/or informing the delivery of that support through more efficient, targeted and effective use of teachers, school support staff other professional and practitioner groups that work with children further improves the process

2. The established process is known as MAP and represents a simple, yet adaptable working model that can be applied to both primary and secondary phases. The model has built upon structures and practice already in schools such as in-school referral panels, used in some Wandsworth secondary schools and in-school multi-agency reviews in use at a number of primary and secondary schools.

Purpose of MAP meetings

3. MAP establishes a framework that brings together relevant members of the school staff team with other professionals on a half-termly basis. The MAP provides a forum at which professional scrutiny and a solutions focus can be brought to bear on issues presenting within the schools. These issues may be whole school issues or may be issues relating to individual children.

4. Just as importantly MAP serves to establish and consolidate consistent relationships between schools and the professionals supporting them. These relationships serve to clarify points of access and thresholds, identify safeguarding issues and enable ongoing professional discussion to occur outside of the MAP meetings feed into school improvement and extended service planning

Solution Focused approach

5. Solution focused models have been extensively developed over the past twenty years and attempt to prevent professionals and those they work with, from becoming preoccupied or overwhelmed by presenting problems. Instead, far greater attention is paid towards identifying what is working successfully and how further desired outcomes (solutions) could be achieved using the identified strengths and resilience of those involved. This approach lends itself particularly well to working with children and young people and can be applied equally to a wide variety of professional and client consultations.

The whole school view

6. There is now substantial evidence that many pupil needs can be most effectively met through group or whole school interventions, rather than individual approaches. Such interventions could range from generating a project to counter bullying, introducing Circle time, the supervision of Learning Support Assistants (LSAs), setting up parenting groups, Curriculum and Professional Development and training for staff. Commissioning and/or coordinating external agencies to work with the school or cluster of schools on issues will also be informed by MAP meetings.

Aims of MAP

The aims of MAP are to: -

  1. Provide a forum to consider the most appropriate action for pupils for whom the class teachers need additional help.
  1. Provide a forum for resolving problems and concerns and for planning strategies in relation to meeting the additional needs of individual and groups of pupils.
  2. Provide a forum to ensure effective communication between the professionals within the school who are involved with meeting pupils additional needs e.g. Senco, Inclusion Co-ordinator, Lead Behaviour Professional, Safeguarding and Children Looked After Co-ordinators, Extended Schools Co-ordinator and Learning Mentors,
  1. Provide a forum to plan using cross service expertise, from within and outside the school, in relation to children who need support in addition to that available in school, to progress identification of complex needs and define required outcomes through the use of the Common Assessment Framework CAF. To review needs and outcomes for those children and young people with a CAF already in progress.
  1. To identify a Lead Professional when more than one additional service outside the school is required to meet a child’s needs.
  1. Provide a forum to plan for the transition of vulnerable children for whom additional help has been in place in the early years to ensure effective continuity of any support defined by the locality EYMAP action plan for the child as they settle into school and move forward
  1. Provide a forum to plan for the transition of vulnerable young people for whom special support has been in place in the school to ensure effective continuity of support as the young person leaves school e.g. Primary to Secondary, Secondary to FE, move to another borough etc.

In addition MAPs aim to: -

  1. Increase the capacity of schools to manage the needs of pupils in collaboration with other professionals;
  1. Develop the use of a solution focused approach to tackling issues raised and to promote a process model;
  1. Develop collaborative problem solving approaches to delivering School Self Evaluation process and to achieve Every Child Matters and Common Assessment Framework outcomes;
  1. Identify and secure training and modelling for new and existing staff as required.
  1. Build the confidence of staff in schools;
  1. Increase collaboration between integrated multi-agency programme in the early years, primary and schools.
  1. Ensure that emerging/unmet need identified by MAP is fed into School Improvement and Extended Services planning at a school and cluster level.

Membership of MAP

Attendance may vary but membership will typically include: -

Headteacher

Senco

Extended School Cluster Co-ordinator

Social Worker

Educational Psychologist

Representative from Best Bip/ISS

Police Youth Engagement Officer

Preventative Youth Service

School Link Inspector/School Improvement Partner

CAMHS

School Nurse

Other providers working with the schools*

* In Battersea this has included the children’s fund services Imani Project (domestic violence) and Junior Youth Inclusion Project.

All members of the MAP receive agendas, minutes etc. Certain members will not attend all meetings unless specifically requested to do so e.g. Police Youth Engagement Officer, CAMHS representative.

MAP Links with CAF

In the majority of cases MAP meetings will be used as a forum in which to identify children and young people who require a more holistic assessment of their needs using the common assessment framework and to review the progress made by children and young people who already have a CAF in place.

MAP links with Extended Schools and wider commissioning

Operating above the school based MAPs is the Cluster MAP. Serving an Extended School Cluster, it is the role of this group to consider and review the issues emerging from MAPS to identify common issues and unmet need. This information can then used to inform the commissioning process both for both targeted and universal service.

MAPs, Information Sharing Agreements and Protocols

The question is often asked by schools if information sharing agreements (ISA) and protocols are required before frontline practitioners can share information and in effect consult about a specific child.

The view of the DfES is that they are not. Thedecision to share or not to share information about a child should always be based on professional judgement, supported by the cross-Government Information Sharing: Practitioners’ Guide (published in April 2006) and informed by training. The lack of an ISA between agencies should never be a reason for not sharing information that could help a practitioner deliver services to a child.

For each child a school plans to share information on it is best practice to seek consent from the parent or guardian before doing so. This does not have to be written consent but can be can be oral or implied through the use of a fair processing notice issued by the school at admission. The fair processing notice should stress that schools are supported by a variety of partners who provide consultation and advice to school based staff in order that the school can achieve the best possible outcome for its children. If a parent refuses consent the school may override that refusal if the public interest outweighs the parents interests.

Where a school does not feel ready to seek consent but requires the advice of other agencies to identify an in-school solution schools MAP meetings will be closed, confidential meetings. The child is not identified but the case is discussed. No practitioner can act on information received in this way. Consent must be sought for a referral onwards to be made.

Information sharing protocols (strategic level) andinformation sharing agreements(managerial and operational level) are about business processes, legalities and being able to trust and understand what each agency is doing and bringing to the integrated working process. Information sharing agreements are primarily about agreeing and establishing processes, roles and responsibilities, and are particularly relevant to the supply of data from one organisation to another by electronic means. Neither information sharing agreements nor protocols are about practitioners sharing information about individual children who may have unmet needs and require services to address those needs.

MAP Overview