Interagency collaboration and partnership with parents: roles and responsibilities

With the inclusion agenda gaining momentum, it seems the most logical action for practitioners in schools is to work closely with colleagues from other agencies, support services, voluntary services and charities. The National Curriculum Inclusion Statement (DfEE, 1999) and the SEN Code of Practice (DfES, 2001) rein force this statement. The latter of these documents dedicates whole chapters to ‘Working in partnership with parents’, ‘Pupil participation’ and ‘Working in partnership with other agencies’, emphasizing the importance now placed on joined-up thinking. In the first section of the ‘Working in partnership with other agencies’ chapter it states: ‘Meeting the special educational needs of individual children requires flexible working on the part of the statutory agencies. They need to communicate and agree policies and protocols that ensure there is a “seamless” service’ (DfES, 2001: 135, 10.1). This, to the majority of people, is a reasonable and obvious avenue of development to pursue, to further enhance a holistic support system for children and young people. However, to enable this development to reach fruition it is considered necessary for the government to pass legislation to facilitate such action. Indeed, Bronfenbrenner stated such a necessity in 1970:

It is a sobering fact that, neither in our communities nor in the nation as a whole, is there a single agency that is charged with the responsibility of assessing or improving the situation of the child in his total environment. As it stands, the needs of children are parcelled out among a hopeless confusion of agencies no one is concerned with the total pattern of life in the community. (1970: 163)

Roaf (2002) also supports this point of view and suggests that legislation, organization, professional practice and resources are the four main factors that contribute to the success of inter-agency work. She writes: ‘legislation should also devise effective government structures which do not compartmentalize children and ensure that preventative and proactive work is fully integrated’ (ibid.: 146).

However, it was not until the Green Paper, Every Child Matters that the government’s intention to integrate the key services within a single organizational focus at both local and national levels in England and Wales was demonstrated. At the national level, the government aims to do this through a number of initiatives, such as a new Children’s Commissioner who will act as an independent champion, and ‘in the long term, integrate key services for children and young people under the Director of Children’s Services as part of Children’s Trusts’ (HMSO, 2003). At the local level the government will encourage this joint working by setting out practice standards expected of each agency, ensuring children are a priority across services and involving and listening to children’s and young people’s views. Three other factors clearly identify the government’s determination to ensure that joint working is developed further. They are:

■ rationalizing performance targets, plans, funding streams, financial accountability and indicators;

■ creating an integrated inspection framework for children’s services. OFSTED will take the lead in bringing together joint inspection teams. This will ensure services are judged on how they work together.

■ creating an improvement and intervention function to improve performance by sharing effective practice, and intervening where services are failing. (HMSO, 2003)

The practice nevertheless can be very different from the theory, as Lacey’s (2001) research on inter-professional work within a special school found. In this situation Lacey concluded that the attempt to collaborate with other agencies caused anxiety and even hostility. Referring to the definitions of ‘anxiety’ and ‘hostility’ within the psychology of personal constructs (Kelly, 1955), Blamires and Moore write:

Anxiety is defined as the awareness of an individual that she may not have the skills, knowledge or understanding required to deal with a forthcoming event or challenge, whilst hostility is the active refusal to adapt to the implications of forthcoming events or challenges. (2003: 7)

It is, therefore, bearing these factors in mind that will introduce and provide information about terminology and the roles and responsibilities of agencies that can or should be involved with schools and individual families. It will focus on how schools can play a positive part in developing valuable and worthwhile relationships with these agencies to the benefit of the learners. Work of this nature is always very time-consuming and can also cause a great deal of anxiety for children, young people and their families. The purpose of involving a number of agencies in a child’s life therefore must be very clear and the professional must feel confident that inter-agency intervention will have a positive impact on the child.

Discussion

Consider a case in your workplace setting where more than one agency has been involved in supporting a child. This may be a speech and language therapist or a social worker, for example. List the positive and negative points of how effective the cooperation between professionals was (a) to foster better relationships between services and; (b) to actually support the child or young person in a positive way, academically, socially or emotionally. Then consider reasons why (a) or (b) was successful or not.