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Save Multi-agency services: How people respond to change
Change can be a challenging process for people coming to work in a multi-agency service. They will be working with new people, with a new service remit and in a new way with children and families. This means that it will not be possible or appropriate to work in the same way they did before. It will probably mean abandoning, or at least reassessing, old assumptions, values and theories about how things work. Because these are an integral part of people's professional identities, we are often strongly wedded to them. They provide us with the support and confidence to make decisions and to move forward. Few of us can abandon such things easily and many of us will resist change, at least in the short term.
The seven stages of bereavement described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969 can be applied to many other situations involving significant change and disruption, including organisational change. As a leader, reflecting on and understanding these stages may help you support people through the process of change and prevent them getting stuck at a particular stage.
| SHOCK | That this is happening |
| DENIAL | That this is happening |
| FRUSTRATION | Often expressed in anger and outrage |
| DEPRESSION | As the anger turns inwards |
| EXPERIMENTATION | Exploring the possibilities of the new reality |
| DECISION-MAKING | Choices are made between the options presented by the new reality |
| INTEGRATION | Change is internalised and made sense of |
As practitioners grapple with the changes involved in being part of a multi-agency service and as they discover new realities emerging from their work with children and young people, they may experience this process of adapting to change.
The sequence is both normal and necessary, becoming dangerous only if people become stuck, for example at the frustration stage, and unable to move on. In such cases they may need space to express their frustration and help to move beyond it. You may feel a natural desire to suppress the frustration, out of concern that their anger will be destructive. But this risks locking the practitioner (and perhaps everyone in the service) in to this stage in the process rather them enabling to move on.
Reading and resources
Kubler-Ross, E., On Death and Dying (1969), New York: Macmillan
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Last updated on 30/04/2009
