Targeted youth support pathfinder links with budget holding lead professional initiative - 2

This case study relates to Mobilise Achievement 1: The local authority understands in depth what targeted youth support is, what the government requires by 2008 and how it fits with related workstrands.

Overview

Derbyshire has identified the interdependence of the targeted youth support (TYS) and budget-holding lead professional (BHLP) pathfinders and their common interest in providing additional support for vulnerable young people where more than one agency is involved. 

The two pathfinders are aligned through the close working of their project managers and as both are overseen by Derbyshire Children's and Young People's Trust arrangements.

One of the four locations for the BHLP pathfinder is the TYS pathfinder area. Training on the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and the lead professional role, essential enablers for both projects, is planned for Autumn 2006. It is expected that the implementation of each of the projects will support the aims of the others. 

Issue

Derbyshire commenced its TYS change programme in February 2006. It immediately recognised that the role of the lead professional, alongside CAF and the Information Sharing Index, was critical to the success of integrated targeted youth support services. For example, coordination of integrated services intervening with or treating a young person or their family is needed (where more than one agency is involved) by a competent lead professional. The lead professional must have the knowledge and ability to allocate responsibility, ensure the client's needs are met, and ensure services communicate and collaborate effectively around the case. 

Derbyshire became a BHLP pathfinder in June 2006. The government's and the authority's aim is for:

• Budget-holding lead professionals to have access to and leverage over significant budgets in relation to individual children, young people and families, in order to access more responsive services and support for their clients
  
  
• The development of effective structures and processes to support individual practitioners and their managers carry out a budget holding role for children, young people and their families
  
  
• The pooling of core budgets and their use for early intervention work via individual budgets for children and young people with additional support needs requiring lead professional input
  
  
• The development and delivery of effective training and support for managers and practitioners engaged in developing and delivering lead professional budget holding approaches
  
  (Source: DfES BHLP conditions of Grant and Guidance, June 2006)

A clear area of common interest between the TYS and BHLP pathfinders is additional support for vulnerable young people where more than one agency is involved. The issue the authority faced was how to link the two projects to maximise the outcomes of both.

Action taken and planned

The BHLP pathfinder has been established within the Derbyshire Making Links project, which also comprises the CAF and Information Sharing projects, all enablers for integrated children's and young people's services. 

A project manager for BHLP has been appointed. The TYS project manager is liaising closely with the project managers within Making Links and will continue to do so to ensure the projects are aligned. 

The TYS pathfinder and Making Links are linked strategically through Derbyshire Children's and Young People's Trust Board, the trust steering group and the 11-19 implementation group. The new Youth Support Services Group will oversee strategic and operational youth-related elements of all Derby initiatives. 

Training on CAF and the lead professional has commenced and the TYS project manager has secured agreement that training will be rolled out in the short term in the TYS area of Staveley, Bolsover and Shirebrook. This will create a body of staff able to take on the BHLP role. Specific training on BHLP will commence in November and December 2006, with a view to the first BHLPs taking up their role in January 2007.

Derbyshire is currently considering how integrated multi-agency teams should be structured and implemented. Once multi-agency teams and related management arrangements are established, protocols will be established for the BHLP role and ways of working defined for how lead professionals interact with service staff within the integrated teams and with other services. 

Results

It is expected that the implementation of the BHLP role will support the delivery of the TYS pathfinder objective of better outcomes for young people through integrated youth support services by:

• Making funding available for additional services to address needs, identified via the CAF, which cannot be met by existing commissioned services, such as:
  - counselling, mediation and sign-posting
  - family group conferencing
  - respite care
  - access to additional direct leisure and skill-based activities
  - additional mentoring
  - transport to ensure inclusive access to services which the lead professional believes necessary to address the young person's need
  
  
• Supporting early intervention through a non-bureaucratic process where funding is directly in the hand of the person doing the work and can be swiftly allocated to meeting needs
  
  
• Facilitating specific targeted support because the provision of funding must sit alongside a detailed long-term plan for the individual young person
  
  
• Encouraging, indirectly, the creation and maintenance of community-located groups of services to coordinate arrangements for multi-agency working for children and young people.

It is expected that the delivery of TYS will support the BHLP role by:

• Establishing ways of working for multi-agency teams with the lead professional role as a key element
  
  
• The developing of a service directory
  
  
• Ensuring, through the service directory and through training and development opportunities, that all service staff are familiar with the available service provision

Click to go back to the case studies for the Mobilise stage.