About multi-agency teams
The key feature of a multi-agency team is that practitioners are seconded or recruited into the team, making it a more formal arrangement than a multi-agency panel. Practitioners share a sense of team identity and are generally line-managed by the team leader, though they may maintain links with their home agencies through supervision and training.
- There is a dedicated team leader.
- There is a good mix of education, health, social care, youth justice and
youth work staff.
- The people who work in the team think of themselves as team members. They
are recruited or seconded into the team, either full or part time.
- The team engages in work with universal services and at a range of levels -
not just with individual children and young people, but also small-group,
family and whole-school work.
- The team is likely to share a base, though some staff may continue to work
from their home agencies.
- There are regular team meetings to discuss case working as well as administrative issues.
| Benefits and opportunities | Challenges |
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Good sense of team identity. Co-working is at the heart of the team's approach, allowing sharing of skills and knowledge. Communication is straightforward. Joint training is easy to facilitate. There are opportunities to carry out preventive and early intervention work in whole school and early years settings, as well as small group and individual casework. |
Recruitment and HR. Time and resource needs to be set aside for team building and development. Some teams are not based together, which can present challenges for team working and communication. Good relationships with schools and other universal providers are vital. Need to set aside sufficient time for meetings and other team contact time. |
Examples of multi-agency teams working with a range of children and young people include:
Click on the links above for more on these services, or click to go to the practitioners' toolkit or the managers' toolkit.
This page was last updated on 13 January 2006
