RSS web feeds 
Share 
Print 
Email 
Save Multi-agency services: Staffing
This page has information on staffing multi-agency panels, teams and integrated services.
Staffing a multi-agency panel
There are a whole range of practitioners who can contribute to multi-agency working in support of children and families with additional needs. There are also a variety of membership criteria in operation across different panels, for example:
- Some panels are open to anyone who feels they have an interest in a particular child or young person's welfare.
- Some panels, particularly those that are located in a school, are made up of practitioners who are already working in the school.
- The criterion for joining a youth inclusion and support panel (YISP) is steered by national guidance. This states that the range of partners is likely to include the youth offending team, police, social services, youth services, housing, health (CAMHS), schools, community and play services and voluntary and community groups. In a YISP, panel members take on a more strategic role and are supported by a team of key workers who carry out casework with individual children and families, sometimes working with panel members or other local services.
The precise skills balance will need to be decided locally, in line with the purpose of your panel, how much direct casework it will be doing and the resources available.
Based on advice given to YISPs you might find it helpful to take the following into account when establishing your panel membership:
- the catchment area of the service
- anticipated workload and method of operation
- the roles and responsibilities of panel members in relation to assessment and planning
- how children and families will be involved in panel decisions
- the strength and efficacy of relevant local strategic partnerships
- information exchange and confidentiality.
If your panel is supported by practitioners who take on direct casework, you will need to recruit or second these staff into the service. If your panel has a significant number of these caseworkers, you may wish to refer to the section below on multi-agency teams for more advice on setting up and working with a permanent staff team.
You may also need to identify secretarial and IT support to ensure the effective administration of the panel. In addition to ongoing membership, you may want to consider inviting specific agencies from time to time, to share information on a new service that is available locally or to contribute to the action planning for a particular young person.
Building a multi-agency team
The membership of your team may be influenced by national guidance. This applies to services such as youth offending teams (Yots) or behaviour and education support teams (BESTs). For example:
- A Yot is typically made up of representatives from the police, probation service, social services, health, education, drugs and alcohol misuse services and housing officers.
- A BEST will also have education, social services and health staff, but any youth justice input is likely to be focused on preventive work (e.g. using restorative justice approaches in peer conflict resolution) and there may be a greater emphasis on addressing mental health issues, for example with the input of educational psychology and psychiatric staff.
The precise balance of skills in your team will need to be decided locally, in line with your local audit of need, the purpose of your team and available resources.
It is likely that all team members will carry out core functions within the team, for example needs identification and planning. But practice suggests that one of the key benefits of a multi-agency team is being able to bring in different specialisms to address multiple needs. This means that each member will need to use their own specialism and expertise where appropriate.
The national evaluation of the Children's Fund found that the most effective collaboration between practitioners was founded on clarity about the particular and different contributions of each agency. It found no evidence that multi-agency working was leading to the development of a generic all-purpose practitioner.
You will also need to identify secretarial and IT support to ensure the effective administration of the team.
Identifying staff and services in an integrated service
The types of staff and services that may be provided in a co-located, integrated setting include:
- childcare
- Early Years learning
- lifelong learning
- healthcare and social services
- family support and parental outreach
- neighbourhood renewal
- access to ICT
- cultural and sporting activities
- play
- community centres
- police officers in schools
- Connexions
- youth services
- study support
- work experience provision
- shops and commercial services
You will also need to identify secretarial and IT support to ensure the effective administration of the team.
The precise balance of services and the level of staffing will depend on the age range of the children and young people you are working with, their requirements and the requirements of the local community. This final point is crucial – it helps to avoid the situation where services are provided with the best of intentions but receive little uptake. Those involved in the extended schools pathfinder projects used the following methods to engage their local communities:
- drawing on the community consultation outcomes from other initiatives, for example Sure Start, neighbourhood renewal programmes or specialist schools
- employing workers whose key role was to consult with the local community, for example using opportunistic face to face engagement with small numbers of people, such as parents at the school gates and at a variety of community meetings
- drawing on existing community forums, where members of the forum carried out consultation with other people in the community
- holding specific activities to launch the project in the community, for example through a 'fun day' which advertises the fact that the new service exists and aims to secure a wider range of involvement
- small-scale community consultation, for example using questionnaires for parents, children and young people
- drawing on the knowledge of experienced community workers, for example those in neighbourhood renewal teams.
For more information on the types of services that are typically provided in these settings please see the following core documents:
- Extended Schools prospectus (June 2005)
- A Sure Start children's centre for every community: Phase 2 planning guidance (July 2005)
Resources
Behaviour and education support teams (BEST) role specifications practitioner positions
Behaviour and education support teams (BEST) role specifications team leader and admin positions
Download the contents of this page:
as a Word Document
Last updated on 30/04/2009
