Run the change teams

Before you begin this activity, you should have successfully held a Fast Start event and gained agreement from all change team members and leaders to the required time commitment.

The benefits of change teams

All authorities have existing multi-agency meetings, committees and teams, but the pathfinders have found that targeted youth support (TYS) change teams are a more powerful driver for change across agencies.

Change teams have a new and powerful mandate from Decision Point 2 (the presentation of TYS data to the senior management group and their identification of priorities to improve services) and so are uniquely positioned to redesign services to create positive changes in the lives of vulnerable children and young people. 

Change teams are made up of representatives from a mix of agencies and groups crucial to delivering TYS, for example, housing, regeneration, district council and transport, the police, Connexions, PCTs, YOTs, schools, youth service, voluntary agencies, community workers, parents and young people. Some of these agencies and groups may not have been identified before as having a big influence on young people's lives.

This new mix results in:

• Creating a blend of knowledge and skills that encourages creative thinking, holistic solutions and collective ownership of the issues affecting the community
  
  
• Generating effective information sharing between agencies, focused on clear aims and outcomes
  
  
• A growing understanding of each other's organisations and the links or potential links between them
  
  
• Breaking down cultural barriers and a more holistic approach to forming solutions
  
  
• Identifying previously unrecognised factors leading to poor outcomes for young people, by drilling down into issues in-depth across all agencies
  
  
• Identifying efficiencies through sharing resources and infrastructure, providing cost savings and efficiency gains by avoiding duplication
  
  
• Having a clear mandate and decision-making capability overseen and supported by a senior management group
  
  
• A shared vision that helps bring together agencies' existing strategies, while not comprising their individual aims and outcomes

The TYS pathfinder work has illustrated how a 'can do' partnership approach makes things happen. Before the pathfinder we had initiatives to redesign our targeted youth services, but without the structure that the TYS change process has brought us they stalled and we lost momentum

Bridget Cooper, TYS project manager, Worcestershire

How change teams operate

Each change team will need to agree how it will develop a quality, sustainable solution.

Ideally each change team will have two leads:

• A senior co-lead with clear accountability for the deliverables of the change team - ideally someone who sits on the TYS senior management group
  
  
• An operational co-lead who manages the mechanics of the change team

The first change team meeting should agree its detailed terms of reference, including interim and final deliverables, and its ways of working, eg weekly facilitated sessions. The deliverables should be strongly guided by the ultimate objective of presenting robust proposals at Decision Point 3.

Change teams will have commenced their work at Fast Start and will continue to work over a period of time, coming together at the Options Development Workshop and the Evaluation Workshop.

However, some change teams will find it difficult to meet on a regular basis of half a day a week and may prefer to organise fewer more intensive sessions to accomplish the work. Facilitation resource is also likely to help change teams to work more effectively if limited time is available.

This toolkit provides a wide range of tools and techniques to assist change teams to work effectively.

Each team should have clear accountability via the project manager to the senior management group.

Click for other activities supporting the Develop stage of the targeted youth support change process, or for an overview of the Develop stage.