Multi-agency services: working out roles and responsibilities

It is common shorthand to describe people's roles within a multi-agency service in relation to their professional background - for example 'the social worker', 'the mental health worker' or 'the health visitor'. This can certainly be helpful for getting a quick overview of what a service can offer. However, if you are trying to break down barriers and understand the individual skills that people can bring to bear in support of individual children and their families, it is not always the most helpful way for colleagues to think about each other.

This may be particularly so in a multi-agency team like a behaviour and education support team (BEST) or an integrated service like a children's centre, which tend to focus on developing a shared identity as members of a multi-agency service, albeit with individual skills and strengths.

And sometimes it is not the best way of describing the work of your service to families, who may hold preconceptions of different practitioner groups that relate more to their statutory role than their role in the multi-agency service.

Because of this, it is sometimes better to think about the individual skills you bring and how these complement other skills available within the service, so that together there is a comprehensive skills base for working with children and young people.

Staff are often worried about the impact of working in a multi-agency service on their future professional identity. However, evaluations of Sure Start and children's trusts found no signs that multi-agency working led to the development of a generic all-purpose practitioner. While there is a need for certain shared knowledge and skills, there is also a need for understanding of, sensitivity to and respect for others' professional roles and responsibilities.

What we need to do though is bring the skills together in a better mix and in a better way, so don't be concerned for your professional identity, because we'll always need it. We'll always need you to do the job, we just might need you to do it slightly differently.
Strategic Manager quoted in national evaluation of Childrens Trusts

When you join, try to think clearly about the skills, knowledge and perspectives you bring, particularly in relation to the vision and purpose of the service. Two helpful starting points might be:

• The Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children's Workforce, which provides a map for you to look at to see which generic skills for working with children you feel competent and comfortable with.
  
  
• Your previous job description or other professional description, which describe the things that are distinctive or specialist about your role. For example, the ability to provide solution-focused therapy, or to offer parenting skills programmes, or provide specific interventions with young people with behavioural problems.

Being a lead professional

A lead professional is someone who takes a lead role in working with a child or young person with multiple additional needs who is involved with a range of practitioners. The lead professional is not a job title or a new role, but a set of functions to be carried out as part of the delivery of effective integrated support. They act as a single point of contact, ensure that support is effectively delivered and reduce overlap and inconsistency in the work that is being done. 

The lead professional is an important aspect in ensuring that children, young people and their families who have multiple needs achieve better outcomes and have a better experience of services through the provision of integrated support.

As a member of a multi-agency service delivering integrated support to children and young people with additional needs, it is likely that at some point you will take a lead role for some of your cases.

You can find out more about what this means in practice, what skills and knowledge are required, and what managerial support is helpful, by accessing the lead professional area of the website.