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• What multi-agency working means for me

Children's centre coordinator

Rachel began as a nursery manager at a family centre. The centre cared for children between the ages of three and five. Rachel's main role was to prepare the centre for the change to a children's centre as part of Sure Start, but she also had a day-to-day role managing the centre and coordinating the staff to meet the needs of the centre.

In a typical day she would work from an office separate from the children. At the start of the day she would meet with staff for around 15 minutes to schedule specific tasks and responsibilities, as and when they needed resources (for example prospective parents of children attending the centre would need to be visited and staff would have to be allocated to that). Twice a week the centre would run community group sessions when the main childcare facilities would be closed. These groups would enable families to come in to meet one another and help strengthen community links. On Fridays the centre would hold workshops for parents, on subjects such as numeracy and literacy.

Rachel's role was largely managerial and she had little contact with children unless she was covering a vacancy. In this capacity she would deal with telephone queries from the public and students or schools interested in careers working with children, and also liase with social services to share information when it was appropriate.

Rachel started at the centre with the purpose of preparing it for the change to a children's centre, so in some sense the change to a multi-agency role was quite straightforward. Her day-to-day role is largely the same, but the centre is run slightly differently as it now caters for children from three months to five years. Previously the centre only ran nursery sessions on three days a week, but now they operate on five days, as well as running additional workshops and clubs.

The centre now employs new staff with experience of working with children aged under three. The physical and organisational arrangement of the centre has been changed to match its new needs (including some construction work). These changes are being approved by Ofsted. Rachel's role continues as it did before, although the work she is coordinating in the family centre is now wider and more multi-agency focused.

The centre now has two outreach workers who run the community groups, and go into the community to help people who request it. Rachel does not line manage their work, but thinks this is a good resource to have at the centre. The centre also offers monthly sessions with Jobcentre Plus to speak with parents and to offer them career support. Good links still exist with health and social services. Since the change the links to the local education service and special educational needs (SEN) departments have been maintained.

Challenges of the multi-agency role

• Since the transition to being a children's centre Rachel and her colleagues have to offer more services in a similar-sized space, which has been challenging. However, Rachel and the staff are hoping to move to a larger building in the future to help relieve the pressure on space.
• Rachel has had to implement a large number of changes to the centre and how it is organised, and this in itself has been a challenge. Also, staff that had worked in the old family centre found it difficult to adapt to the new style of working and the increased age range of children, and Rachel was responsible for helping them through this.

Benefits of the multi-agency role

• The centre now has the facility to help parents contact Jobcentre Plus and the Benefits Agency directly because of the new links between them. This has helped quite a few parents return to work and access training that they might not otherwise have had.
• Rachel and the centre can now accommodate referrals from social and health services for children under three years of age.
• The outreach workers have been very helpful as they have dedicated time to talk to parents outside the nursery setting and help them in their homes.

The change of role for staff itself has been beneficial as the core staff now focus entirely on childcare and not on having to run workshops or sessions, which now have their own staff to work on them.

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Last updated on 30/04/2009