This essay will be focusing on Multi-agency teams, which is a service of different professionals from different working areas that join up and work together as part of one team that provides support for a child, young person or families. It will be looking at the advantages and disadvantages that multi-agency teams can have when working together and the effects of this.
Multi agency teams have been working together as early as the 19th century, since then many legislations and policy documents have been put in place over the years up to this current day.
The government’s vision is for a health, Social and education service, where individuals and groups of individuals from various services provide work more closely together to meet the
…show more content…
needs of children, young people and families. (Blandford and Knowles, 2009, p.9) So it has been constantly looked at over the years and has shown to be the government’s aim to improve this way of working and the service it provides to those needing it, especially after the horrific case of Victoria Climbie death, which led to the policy ECM (Every Child Matters 2003). The ECM Policy has shown to be very effective within schools, showing more awareness on healthy eating, support children on the wellbeing and providing better meals. (The NFER surveys of 2006 and 2007) both found that schools had more contact with some local services than others. For example, 90 per cent of primary and secondary schools surveyed accessed health, social care and the police more than housing services which were accessed by only 41 per cent of primary schools and 50 per cent of secondary schools. Housing and social care were the two services which were considered to be the least accessible for support by schools.(sagehub.com.2008 pg.24) This has shown a good outcome and the impact it is having within schools, they can now look at ways to improve housing and social care service. More policies and procedures have also been put in place for all agencies to be following the same rules and guidelines when working individually and together, which helps to create a stronger team and deliver the correct care to those who need it. ‘Sloper (2004) suggests that ‘work may be more effective when the aims, rules and responsibilities are clarified and timetables between professionals are agreed’. (Paul Michael dec2013. Pg 411) This would help keep things running more smoothly between the professionals and they would have a better understanding of what roles they need to personally do which will stop the confusion between the different professionals. This also links into Bruce Tuckman’s theory (1965) who believes that Team development and behaviour is helpful in assisting multi-agency practitioners to understand the four stages they work through, in order to become an effective team which is through Forming, Storming, norming and performing. (Cheminais, Rita 2009 pg.37). This can help give a clearer guidance of how to deal with situations as it gives you a more structured approach which can improve working methods and the timetables. It would also help prevent fatigue in individuals from the work overload as they can then start to feel more organised with guidelines to follow and show what they have done and what needs to be done. Fatigue can cause professionals to start forgetting things like sending important emails to each other and doing things in the correct order due to, too much work and the pressure. This can then cause people to become stress and enjoy their job less. However this is creating more workload for the professionals to do and keep on top of, with more amounts of work and paper work to do which then ads on more time and creates a longer working day. So due to things taking longer to deal with and the overall process slows down for everyone involved and they are unable to help more families and young children. Contradicting that working together can speed up the process a lot more if done correctly as they have more than one way of communicating to each other via phone, fax, email and letters; this makes it much easier to get in contact with the correct professional that is needed for the current case that is being dealt with, it also helps for people to be heard and things to be identified. Also a study has showed that individuals had a ‘greater understanding of the roles and responsibilities of different agencies was noted by about a quarter’ (Source: Telephone interviews in Phase One of the NFER study. 2000). This was taken only from individuals who had more close contact with the service of multi-agency teams. However there are still communication boundaries between each professional which has been shown in high cases’ (Baby P 2006) this is caused from several different things with lack of communication between agencies which can be because of forgetting to send emails, prioritising different things due to the job role they are in and what they see as the most important thing to do may not be as important to another professional involved, not understanding the terminology used with each professionals which causes a huge barrier in the way communication is understood and how things can be perceived, not understanding their roles and not having clear leadership from someone as more than one agency get involved this can then result into role overlaps and more confusion between everyone, which links back to Sloper(2004) suggestion to use agreed timetables and plans which can help prevent these things. This then all leads into each professional not receiving the correct training to be able to work with other professionals as well as what they should, also there training will be based on their own job role and how they should approach it. This can then conflict with other professionals as they prioritise things differently according to their job role. They will be looking at different aspects of the situation and how to deal with it compared to each other, which others will disagree on. As a result of not receiving the correct training individuals are able to give the best possible care for those needing it and more misunderstanding and confusion takes place with the multi-agency teams involved. This will then make the work for individuals harder and they can become more frustrated so their full potential of what they can do in their job role won’t be reached and the families and young children who are receiving the help won’t be getting that. Funding can also be an issue with multi-agency teams joined up and working together as it can add on additional costs.
This will then add on more pressure for the professionals as funding is an essential to provide a service to people and will also affect the quality of service given. However in contrast to this there has been evidence to show that agencies joining up and working together had a higher chance to get funded, through joint funding arrangements rather than getting funded alone.
Improved access to funding and resources at strategic level (noted by over one-sixth) was also considered a benefit. Interviews highlighted, for example, that joint working enabled them to bid for funding which they might otherwise not be able to access because multi-agency involvement was a requirement for the bid. (Source: Telephone interviews in Phase one of the NFER study, 20000. p29).
People’s personal ethnic culture, personal belief and opinions can have an effect on the work they do as they may feel like something isn’t right, or they believe strongly towards or against something. As well as this, people’s attitudes can also have an effect on work itself due to something such as wages received. They may not feel like what one is gaining isn’t fair to what they are personally earning and this can cause people to slack or feel like they are being treated
…show more content…
unfairly. There is evidence that multi-agency teams are working well in certain areas with joined up work as they have gained a better understanding about other professions and the service they provide to people.
So multi-agency work has become more expanded and the care has become greater available to more families and young children and for them to be heard more. You can see some useful information of positive outcomes from multi-agency work, such as a speeded up process, more policy and procedures and you can see there are clear aims to help the working methods for the professionals to follow.
However there is still a massive gap in multi-agency work for improvement which needs to be looked within a few areas. As we can still see that each agency involved are not receiving the correct training to be able to work well and integrate with other professionals to create an overall better service and care. We don’t know how the training is received and the true outcomes of it and how it will cooperate with other professionals.
I also feel that there is not enough evidence to show the true results of Multi-agency teams when working together and the full potential it has, but we can see clear positive aims as well as a more negative side of areas not being dealt with or shown to have much
effect.
It has been identified that there have been many improvements and benefits of effective services available for individuals and being able to effectively solve any problems that may arise. To add to this there has been an increased understanding and trust between agencies and professionals. It leads to enhanced and improved outcomes for service users and services are easily accessible and always available. This also helps to strengthen support and promotes mutual encouragement and the exchange of ideas between staff.
Through the Troubled Families Agenda the police, housing and youth offending teams will all communicate between services to discuss families, Walker discussed that multi agency working was important to help families with their problems and aid them toward a better living. The Home Office (2013) states that each local area will have different multi agency approaches and safeguarding threats, but should still work towards delivering effective multi agency approaches to provides services that are required by
According to my experience as a specialist in the development of children, there is a need for a very positive and active partnership as far as the care of a child is concerned.... ... middle of paper ... ... To instill the culture of working together, employers should establish that teams are groups that collaborate and share skills in an effort to reach common objectives and goals that benefit the overall performance of the company.
This is a reflective essay based on my attendance at a multidisciplinary team (MDT) meeting whilst on my two-week placement at a local mental health day hospital. The aim of this essay is to discuss the importance of the multidisciplinary team within the mental health environment and discuss factors that can influence the success or failure of multidisciplinary teams.
The practice of using inter-professional teams in delivering care is not a new concept but current health policy requires professionals work within a multidisciplinary team Department of Health (2001) and entrenched in the Nursing and Midwifery Council (2008) Code. The principle focus of this essay is to discuss the importance of inter-professional collaboration in delivering effective health care and what challenges and constraints exist. The integration of a case study will give an insight into inter-professional collaboration in practice.
Healthcare transformation and the need for high quality patient care at a low cost gave birth to the idea of interdisciplinary team in the health care industry. The term team according to the Websters dictionary is a group of people who work together. This group of people in interdisciplinary team conference comes from different professions, they bring together diverse skills, knowledge and experience to achieve a common goal that only one person cannot achieve, and this goal is always patient centered. These team members include but not limited to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, dietician, physical and occupational therapists, these team collaborate with patient’s families and community to provide high quality care (Brown-Manherzt,
3.1 It is important to work in partnership with others to provide and support our customers with the best care and support to meet their needs and outcomes. Partnership and multi-agency working is driven by a desire for collaborative advantage and can offer many positive outcomes for both the customers, providers and any other practitioner’s involved.
...be seen gave the author a clear vision on how child protection has developed. Looking at the death of children and discussing them also gave some answers on how children services have developed over time over the years. In the evaluation the author discussed Tthe benefits and challenges offered by inter-agency and inter-professional partnership work have also been considered and it has emerged . By weighing the pros and cons of the author finds out that there is limited evidence on the outcomes for children and families. Even though a number of outcomes were discussed by Atkinson et al., their review provides evidence on the outcomes from professionals’ view point. Therefore, their review is not representative. Perhaps more study based on the outcomes or children and families will provide us a better understanding of on how effective inter-agency working really is.
Health care is an integrated, multifaceted discipline that relies on ‘teamwork between different types of health workers with different skills and training’ (Alperstein, 2009: 7) in order to provide the most comprehensive health care. In this essay I will discuss the meaning of comprehensive care and multi-professional teams. I will then look at my role and the role of two other professions in a multi-professional team, while using Barr’s competencies. From this I will discuss my thoughts and feelings pertaining to the task and how this will aid me becoming an Integrated Health Professional.
Larson, C. and LaFasto, F. (1989), Teamwork: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong. Newberry Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
pp. 406-441. Parker, G., (2003). Cross-Functional Teams: Working with Allies, Enemies, and Other Str
A work team will be defined for the purposes of this paper by a definition borrowed from Bateman and Snell (2004). A team is formed of people (usually a small number) with complementary skills who trust one another and are committed to a common purpose, common performance goals, and a common approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Teams generally see themselves and are seen by others as a social entity, which is interdependent because of the tasks performed as members of a group.
Indeed, some research found that the team diversity has a positive impact on decision making. For example, one of the research found that the diversity at educational level can positively influence the decision making and also affect team performance (Simons). In addition, Dooley and Frywell illustrated that the discussion and argument was associated with quality decision making in U.S. hospitals. However, some research also demonstrated that the diversity in the team can have a negative influence on decision making. For example, Sounder found that, in diverse teams, because of the lots of differences between team members, sometimes its difficult to reach an agreement.
Not all of the teams work well. Such problem as free-riding, or social loafing, is quite a common one and is very difficult to resolve. A lot of managers and teachers struggle with it. Each and every team should have these 3 key elements: “Interaction, Information sharing and Influence over decision making” (Michael West, year).
Within an organization, there are always people that think and behave differently, all dependent on their personal values and cultures. Efficient managing of the human resources is an art, and it is hard to find a perfect solution/combination. It is important that management recognize and understand that people work differently. This is why it is important to have strong cultural foundations that also guides how employees are expected to behave and work. Thereby it should be easier for management to utilize the work force diversity to something meaningful.