Initial developments in South Tyneside
We used a multi-agency approach throughout the initial ‘discover’ and ‘deepen’ stages of the pathfinder process. This involved:
- One-to-one interviews with 25 key strategic colleagues
- Group workshops with 35 key operational staff
- Consultation with 327 children and young people
- A multi-agency workshop with 70 frontline colleagues to map services
- A high level decision-making meeting (Decision Point Two) to present findings from these interactions and gain agreement on future developments including the creation of three ‘Change Teams’ – this marked the beginning of the ‘develop’ stage in the TYSP process
As a result of extensive consultation three Multi-Agency Change Teams have been established to develop proposals to address the following key challenges:
- Places to go, things to do / children and young people’s active participation
- Early intervention and prevention
- Sustainability / future commissioning
Recent developments across the change teams
Change Team 1 is developing an integrated programme of activities for the 2007 schools summer holiday period. Representatives from nine local agencies/services met together from 26 to 28 April 2007 at a residential event to plan a collaborative programme of activities. This is the first time that multi-agency colleagues have worked together on this scale and will ensure that there is no duplication of effort and also that there will be fewer gaps in provision. Joint publicity and promotion will be another feature within this approach.
Work is also underway on the development of Children and Young Person’s Audit Teams which are being developed to gain children and young people’s views on existing service provision and how it might be improved where applicable.
Change Team 2 have produced costed proposals to develop Multi-agency Early Intervention and Prevention Teams and associated Multi-agency Panels. This approach has been developed to strengthen the Framework for an Integrated Response in South Tyneside (FIRST) model and is centred around developing a ‘team around the family’ for those children and young people assessed via the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) as needing access to a Lead Professional.
A report on these proposals went to the Children and Young People’s Directorate Management Team (DMT) on 8 May 2007. The decision was taken to continue development by linking these proposals into the Directorate’s ‘Service Delivery’ Workstream that is part of the current change management process that will inform the future structure of the Children and Young People’s Directorate.
Change Team 3 has developed a new Quality Commissioning Framework and a set of associated systems for future use by the Children and Young People’s Alliance. The framework and commissioning ‘tools’ have been refined following some initial piloting by the Childhood and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). There is now a need for these systems to be tested using some of the development ideas being generated by Change Teams 1 and 2.
Positive feedback received
Developments within the Pathfinder have received national recognition from Beverley Hughes, Minister for Children, Young People and Families who highlighted some of South Tyneside’s positive actions at a national conference on ‘Integrated Youth Support Services (IYSS) held in Birmingham on 5 February 2007. National recognition has also been gained from the Training and Development Agency (TDA) following our Decision Point 3 event and also for our involvement in their Policy Issues information gathering exercise.