The Main Difficulties With Multi Agency Partnerships

I will be evaluating the role of multi-agency working, its strengths and weaknesses and how it is used to reduce the risk of abuse imposed on adults; I will also be referring to legal frameworks, regulations, working strategies and procedures.

This helps practitioner’s work together for the welfare of children. It promotes the Every Child Matters outcomes to reinforcing how important it is for all child careers to work together.

Multi agency working is an effective way of supporting children and families with additional needs. It brings together practitioners and professionals from different sectors to provide an integrated way of working to support children, young people and families.

Integrated working is achieved through effective collaboration and co-ordination across all services and sectors including voluntary who work with children, young people and their families. These sectors could be housing, police, health, child-minders, community groups or early year’s workers. The above services are a fundamental role for both children, families and carers who may need the support of these agencies .Multi- agency Collaboration is crucial in partnership working, to support better outcomes for children and their families. Integrated working brings many benefits to delivering a more improved service by:

A successful approach requires multi-agency collaboration and recognition of child wellbeing at the heart of the organisation.

All organisations and people that work with, or come into contact with children should have safeguarding policies and procedures to ensure that every child, regardless of their age, gender, religion or ethnicity, can be protected from harm. This includes hospitals, schools, private sector providers, sports clubs, faith groups and voluntary/community organisations.

Safeguarding is for everyone and every organisation responsibility to protect children from any harm and promote their welfare (Children Act, 2004). However, the Department of Children, School

I will be evaluating the role of multi-agency working, its strengths and weaknesses and how it is used to reduce the risk of abuse imposed on adults; I will also be referring to legal frameworks, regulations, working strategies and procedures.

This essay will attempt to critically examine the importance of interagency working in the safeguarding and protection of children and young people in the UK. It will consider both the challenges and how these have or might be overcome. It will look at key government legislation in respect to child welfare and pay particular note to high profile cased where interagency working has appeared to be less that effective in maintaining safeguards for vulnerable children, in particular. Consideration will be given to models of working that support interagency collaboration and of how some of these models may have been implemented in current

Partnership is driven by a desire for collaborative advantage and can offer many positive outcomes, like benefits for staff and services such as less replication between different service providers. It helps them see others point of view and it keeps them from being selfish, it helps young people interact with others to achieve a goal, and it helps them develop socially. It’s important to work in partnership with others so that all agencies can share information and concerns about children and young people in their care, it also helps to keep the children safe and away from harm.

The multi-agency team work together to support the child and their family sharing information in meetings, identifying problems and trying to solve the problems as soon as possible. The practitioner should have regular contact with the other professionals to provide the child and their family with a better service. (The Department for Eduation ,2012 www.education.gov.uk, 2012) The practitioner and other professionals will share ideas and comments, the diversity of the different professionals that the practitioner will be working with will benefit the child and their family. The other professionals will have different experiences and will be likely to offer more information and solutions to help the child and their family. (Tassoni.P et al, 2007).For example a practitioner is working with other professionals to meet the needs of a child that has special needs and this child will be starting primary school soon and the practitioner is working with someone who is a SENCO worker (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator). They have got to work out a solution on how best to meet this child’s needs by involving the child in as many activities as possible and encouraging the child to be as independent as possible by making the

Working together to safeguard children 2015 say not just the local authority but everyone who comes into contact with children and families

It is really important for the child/young person and their family to ensure all needs of the individual are met. If we didn’t work with other agencies our children/young people and their families would possibly miss out on valuable support and help.

Working together to safeguard children 2006 sets out how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in accordance with the Children’s Act 1989 and the Children’s Act 2004. It is important that all practitioners within settings and environments looking and caring after children and young people must know their responsibilities and duties in order to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people, following their legislations, policies and procedures.

Working together to safeguard children 2006 was a revised document which provided an update on safeguarding and the national framework to help services for children and agencies to work individually and also together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It was also further revised in 2010 and also applies to those working in education, health and social services as well as the police and the probation service. It is relevant to those working with children and their families in the statutory, independent and voluntary sectors. It is not necessary for all practitioners to read every part of Working Together to Safeguard Children in order to understand the principles and to perform their roles effectively. However, those who work regularly with children and young people and who may be asked to contribute to assessments of children and young people in need and should know the relevant sections of this document. The vetting and barring scheme was introduced in October 2009 with the aim of preventing unsuitable people from working with children and young people. It assured anybody working or volunteering with children would have to register with the independent safeguarding authority (ISA). The ISA will make the decision whether someone is suitable or not to work with children and young people, they base their decisions on information sources like a criminal record bureau checks which gives full record of the individual’s criminal record,