Angela Windle

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Angela Windle Integrated Working Workforce
Development Division, DCSF
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Key elements of Integrated Working
Integrated Processes and Tools
Information Sharing Guidance
Lead Professional
Setting Up Multi-Agency Services
Children Missing Education
Information Sharing Guidance
Lead Professional
Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
Information Sharing Index
ICS
Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
ContactPoint
Service Directories
Integrated Front-Line Service Delivery

• Improved outcomes
• Be Healthy
• Stay safe
• Enjoy and achieve
• Make a positive contribution
• Achieve economic well-being

Childrens Centres
Extended Schools
Targeted Youth Support
Safeguarding
Childrens health NSF
Youth crime Reduction
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Lead professional
Vision All children and young people with
additional needs who require support from more
than one practitioner should experience a
seamless and effective service through one
practitioner taking a lead role
Core Functions
Reduce overlap and inconsistency
Act as a single point of contact for the child or
family
Co-ordinate the delivery of actions agreed
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Appointing a lead professional

• The lead professional
• could be any of the people currently involved
  with the child, from any sector.
• should be the practitioner who is most relevant
  with the most appropriate skills.
• is not necessarily the first person to be
  involved with the child or one who undertakes a
  common assessment.
• is best identified as part of the assessment and
  planning process, eg through a multi-agency
  meeting.
• will be the named social worker or key worker for
  children with complex needs.

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What is Budget Holding Lead Professional all
about?

• Budget-holding is a relatively new and radical
  concept in the delivery of childrens services.
• Budget-holding seeks to enhance the lead
  professional role by giving LPs control over some
  or all of the budgets required to deliver
  publicly funded services to families of children
  with additional needs.
• By acting as single account holders, BHLPs
  expected to be better able to deliver integrated
  packages of support, thereby empowering
  practitioners and families, promoting greater
  collaboration between agencies and achieving
  greater transparency in resource allocation.
• BHLPS were to commission services directly from
  providers in the statutory/voluntary/private
  sectors and bring decision-making closer to the
  child and family through the establishment of a
  team-around-the-child.

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Budget-holding lead professional

• 16 areas have piloted the BHLP
• The pilots are ran from June 2006 to April 2008
• Over 7000 children and young people received
  support.

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Main obstacles

• Lack of manager particularly middle manager
  support
• Capacity and time of practitioners to undertake
  the role
• Inflexible financial systems and processes due to
  tensions around accountability
• Practitioners lack of knowledge of services
  available in the local area
• Lack of provision of services
• Difficulties finding and spot purchasing services

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Key messages

• supporting the whole family rather than a child
  in isolation
• budget-holding is not just an add on to LP
  practice, it requires a major change to working
  practices
• CAF needs to be in place before decisions about
  spend are made
• encouraged practitioners to undertake common
  assessments and the role of the lead professional
  (LP) sooner
• raised the profile of the preventative and early
  intervention agendas

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Key messages contd

• embedding any new practice takes time and needs a
  change in culture.
• changed the focus from a service-led to needs-led
  provision
• stressed the importance of senior manager buy-in
• initial training is absolutely essential but also
  day to day support is critical
• some market development was required to meet gaps
  in provision

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Impact on children, young people and families

• greater level of trust between LPs and children,
  young people and families
• Acted as a lever for engaging traditionally hard
  to engage families.
• Helped C/YP/Fs feel valued, listened to and
  supported.
• Helped C/YP/F feel more in control of how their
  needs are met.
• Allowed a neater match between the C/YP/F needs
  and intervention to be put in place.
• Improved parental/family views of practitioners.
• Supported the growing recognition that you often
  need to support the whole family not just the
  child in isolation - team around the family.
• Allowed quicker responses to simple
  interventions, which has prevented escalation of
  problems.
• Acted as a motivator for families to take control
  of their lives as they see that difficulties can
  be overcome.

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Impact on practitoners

• Empowered practitioners and increased their
  autonomy (and therefore job satisfaction).
• Helped practitioners to feel that they could make
  a real difference by allowing them the freedom
  to break with traditional service routes.
• Encouraged practitioners to take on the Lead
  Professional role.
• Encouraged creativity and solution focused
  thinking to truly meet the needs of families in a
  more responsive way.
• Encouraged practitioners to think of the
  child/family holistically and engage with
  services, especially with the voluntary sector,
  and agencies they may not have done before
• Gave practitioners the opportunity to develop
  their understanding of commissioning and working
  with budgets, as well as understanding the actual
  costs related to services and interventions.
• Had encouraged multi agency and integrated
  working and helped to break down barriers across
  professions and sectors.

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Budgets

• BHLP seems to have encouraged all pilots to start
  to think about pooling budgets, and identifying
  additional budgets and sources of funding to aid
  the commissioning process.
• Most have either aligned or pooled some budgets
  for use by BHLPs in 2008-09. The Surestart grant
  and the Childrens Fund have been the most
  commonly pooled budgets, but also the Extended
  Schools, the Area Based Grant and Positive
  Activities for Young People grants have also been
  popular.

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Next steps

• A national evaluation will help inform decisions
  about wider use of the BHLP concept. This will
  report later in the year/early next year.
• Its yet to be proven how far the cash budget
  contributes to improved outcomes.
• Too early to know implications for LAs

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Find out more..

• www.ecm.gov.uk/deliveringservices/leadprofessional
  /budgetholding

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Every Child Matters Change for
ChildrenIntegrated Working