Multi-professional working

Profile

A multi-professional, collaborative approach supports children’s development and learning. Multi-professional working is undertaken by members of a multi-professional team who have contact with children in their settings, and who work collaboratively and share information with other professionals in accordance with the confidential practices of their workplace and role. (1)

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• How Children Learn 4

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Towards collaborative working practice

The 2003 Green Paper, ‘Every Child Matters (ECM): Change for Children’, (2) which formed the basis of the 2004 Children Act, advocated the need for integrated working by professionals who were involved in delivering services for children and young people. The policy aimed to transform traditional separate working practices by members of multi-agency staff from different departments, such as Social Services, Health or Education. By fostering more collaborative ways of working between staff from different sectors, the ECM policy sought to provide more effective support for the needs of children and their families.

Prior to the introduction of the ECM policy in the 2003 Green Paper, Lord Laming had conducted a review into the tragic death of Victoria Climbié. (3) The Laming report revealed that agencies involved in her support had not shared information appropriately. (3) The Green Paper led to the role of ‘Directorate of Children’s Services’ being established by each local authority to co-ordinate all the services for children within their area. Local Authorities were also expected to create Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards. The policy introduced a focus on the delivery of multi-agency services; the different agencies were expected to share information, their methods of assessment and their frameworks. Additionally, they were expected to plan funding streams and strategies for joint intervention. (4)

The outcomes of ECM were established across different children’s services and were incorporated into the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework; (5) the five outcomes are:

• Being healthy.
• Staying safe.
• Enjoying and achieving.
• Making a positive contribution.
• Achieving economic wellbeing.

The EYFS Framework acknowledges that practitioners’ contribution to the work of multi-professional teams is an integral part of their role. Practitioners engage positively with children, their families, colleagues and other professionals in order to effectively deliver the EYFS for all children. (5)

The Common Assessment Framework (CAF)

As suggested by The Laming Report, (3) the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) was introduced as a standardised approach to assessing children’s additional needs. CAF supports the identification of a child’s additional needs which are not currently being met at the earliest possible stage. When completing the CAF, educators should ensure that families understand the information being recorded about their child.

CAF is intended to support the child’s family through the use of a single form, which enables all the agencies involved in the support of a child to access the information they need. The form aims to remove the need for different agencies concerned with providing services to undertake their own separate assessments.

However, Professor Munro noted in her review of Child Protection (6) that:

‘nationally prescribed sets of forms and software specifications can unintentionally influence and limit local practice, making it difficult for local authorities to innovate in response to new evidence or respond to particular problems in their area.’

Therefore, educators need to ensure that established processes to support multi-professional working are reviewed in the light of their professional use so they provide appropriate support for children. Additionally, it is important to ensure that children and their families understand and support the right of other professionals who are working with the child to access their CAF information. (6)

Information sharing

‘Information sharing’ is a process that is intended to support those children who require additional services by enabling early intervention. Educators use their professional judgment and experience to decide if personal information about a child should be shared with other professionals in order to support their needs and ensure that parents understand the process and have provided their consent. Following Lord Laming’s suggestion (3) that agencies should communicate information more effectively, ‘Information Sharing Guidance’ was set out in the 2004 Children Act to improve the process of sharing information. Children’s Trust Boards were expected to ensure that all partners complied with the guidance.

Potential benefits of Multi-professional working

The following features have been identified as being effective features of multi-agency working with children: (1)

• Participation of more than two relevant agencies, including key stakeholders.
• Identifying common aims and understanding a common problem. There is a shared vision about the likely outcome.
• Having an agreed action plan.
• Communicating with other relevant groups, such as children, parents and community members.
• Clearly articulating agreed decision-making processes.
• Seeking to accommodate different values, cultures and participating agencies.
• Sharing skills and resources.
• Risk-taking.
• Using agreed systems of communication to share information.
• Respecting and acknowledging contributions from different agencies.
• Defining agreed roles and responsibilities.

Challenges to Multi-professional working

Integrated services do not necessarily work effectively together. The National Foundation for Educational Research conducted a study on inter-agency working on behalf of the Local Government Association. Their report identified five main areas that presented challenge to inter-agency working practice:

• Funding and resources.
• Responsibilities and roles.
• Opposing priorities.
• Communication.
• Existing cultures and management structures in professional and agency work practices.

Communication is a key factor. Members of multi-professional teams should seek to develop effective working relationships with each other and respectfully acknowledge the unique contribution of team members to supporting the child and their family. When working with members of the multi-professional team, it is important for the educator to keep the child as the main focus and to include them as part of the team, where this is possible and appropriate. (7)

One of the benefits of the ECM agenda was that it was rooted in the context of provision for all children. Therefore children with additional needs were not seen to be exclusively accessing services, as those services were accessible to all children and their families. Similarly, children with additional needs could access services within the mainstream provision. Children with additional needs will benefit from the work of strong multi-professional teams that ‘provide appropriately for the individual needs of the children for whom they care and educate’. (7)

References

1. Jones, C. and Pound, L. (2010) ‘Leadership in a multi-agency context’ in Working with Children in the Early Years (2nd edn). London: Routledge
2. Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2003) Every Child Matters (Green Paper). London: HMSO
3. Laming, H. (2003) The Victoria Climbié Enquiry: Report of an Enquiry by Lord Laming. London: HMSO
4. Anning, A., Cotrell, D., Frost, N., Green, J. and Robinson, M. (2006) Developing Multi-professional Teamwork for Integrated Children’s Services. Maidenhead: OUP
5. DCSF (2008) The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. Nottingham: DCSF
6. Munro, E. (2011) Munro Review of Child Protection: Final report. London: HMSO
7. Johnson, P. (2010) Becoming an Early Years Professional’ in Farrelly, P. Early Years Work-based Learning. Exeter: Learning Matters

Where to find out more

Greenfield, S. (2011) Working in Multidisciplinary Teams in Miller, L. and Cable, C. (eds) Professionalization, Leadership and Management in the Early Years. London: Sage.

Waller, T. (ed.) (2005) An Introduction to Early Childhood: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

The CWDC website has helpful information on multi-professional work at: http://www.cwdcouncil.org.uk/integrated-working