Multi-agency services: different professional cultures and languages

Multi-agency working is not about trying to homogenise all the professional backgrounds represented in the service. Difference can be a good thing - it allows for creativity and alternatives.

Your own professional and organisational culture will have an impact on the dynamics of the whole group, influencing the way you and colleagues function as an integrated service. Because of their different backgrounds and expectations, members of the group may have different perceptions about the service, for example:

• The 'status' of different members of the service
  
  
• Expectations about how you should work with children and families
  
  
• Who should carry out the work

Existing practice suggests that the most effective way to address this situation is through strong leadership and the willingness of all service members to engage in a robust debate to explore and resolve issues, and promote a common understanding and a shared purpose.

Making sense of your role

Imagine you are working in a foreign country, experiencing a new culture. You have to begin to understand what is acceptable behaviour and the written and unwritten rules of personal engagement.

The same can be true for working with people from a range of different backgrounds, all with different ideas about what this new work will involve. You can feel out of your 'comfort zone'.

It is necessary to try to recognise differences in expectations, language and ethos in order to work effectively alongside partners from different agencies. But this does not mean you have to put your own perspectives and expectations to one side. You may have different - and better! - ideas for your colleagues to consider. An open discussion of all these can help the different perspectives to be assimilated within the service.

Developing a shared identity

Perhaps the key starting point in developing a shared understanding is for all service members to sign up to a common vision for your work with children and young people; one in which your particular role and contribution is clear. Click for more on working within a common vision.

This provides a fixed point for your service, which people can always return to if different theories, perspectives or time pressures start to pull you in different directions again. Over time - particularly if you are working in a team or in a co-located, integrated service - you will develop your own, shared, cultural identity, with your own norms and ethos. This process will be easier if you:

• Value the views of others and take them seriously
  
  
• Treat all other team members with respect
  
  
• Celebrate the diversity of practice, experience and personalities in the team
  
  
• Be open about your own perspectives and practices
  
  
• Have the resilience to challenge other perspectives and practices, but in a constructive way
  
  
• Question, reflect and suggest possible alternatives

Click to read about one team building model if you want to think about how this applies to the way you and your colleagues are developing as a group.

Once your service has developed its own norms and practices, you should still feel able to challenge expectations and go against the norm if justified. This is not a bad thing - in a learning environment you should be encouraged to offer alternative solutions and to creatively evolve new methods and processes that work.

Suggested tools and techniques

• Ensure that you have a clear understanding of the culture of the service, its role and its values. If you are unsure, ask!
  
  
• Know yourself - your strengths, weaknesses and preferred interpersonal style.
  
  
• Know your colleagues - their strengths, weaknesses, personalities and style so that you can effectively work with them.
  
  
• Consider the organisational culture of your home agency. Does your practice reflect the overall culture of your organisation or does it match with a particular sub-culture?
  
  
• Ensure that in all your interactions with others, you are building up, not tearing down.
  
  
• Behave as a role model for interagency working - ensuring a positive contribution, keeping to deadlines and coming up with the goods.
  
  
• Use the glossary for multi-agency working if you need a starting point for understanding others and creating your own common language.