Building capacity for the children’s workforce:

Findings from a Knowledge Review.

Dr Julie Anderson (ESCalate)Professor Imogen Taylor (University of Sussex)

Plan

• Introduction to the ICS-HE Project

• Knowledge Review

• Discussion and questions

FFI go to <http://icshe.escalate.ac.uk/>

ICS-HE Project Overview

• Integrated Children’s Services in Higher Education (ICS-HE).

• One of 6 ‘Employer Engagement’ Projects selected by the HEA with funding from HEFCE.

• Funding agreed Dec 2006; project ran May 2007-May 2008.

Intended Project Outcomes

• Raising awareness of the evolving agenda in children’s services for HE staff working across the disciplines and professions,

• Identifying examples of emergent practice for integrated provision in HE,

• Identifying barriers to change & ways to overcome these,

• Promoting collaboration between disciplines,• Contributing to knowledge generation about IPE in this

arena,• Promoting dialogue between HE and Sector Skills

Councils.

Partners

• HEA Subject Centres for:– Education (ESCalate),– Psychology,– Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine (MEDEV),– Health Sciences and Practice (HS&P),– Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP),

• Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC).• Children's Workforce Network (CWN).

Relevant disciplines and professions

• Education,• Early Years,• Social Work,• Nursing,• Midwifery,• Other allied health

professions,

• Psychology,• Youth and Community,• Careers,• Medicine,• Police,• Probation.

Policy context

• Laming Inquiry (2003) into death of Victoria Climbie,• Every Child Matters (2003),• The Children Act (2004),• Children’s Trusts,• The Children’s Plan (DCSF 2007: 17), • National Service Framework for for Children, Young

People and Maternity Services (2004+2006),• Youth Matters (2006).

FFI: http://icshe.escalate.ac.uk/1459.

UCET, ECM and Teacher Education

• ‘Just as ECM calls for a reconceptualisation of teaching so it also demands a re-conceptualisation of teacher education. It demands a re-structuring of the total programme in such a way that ECM principles become embedded and are made to permeate the student teachers’ university based studies and placement activities’

• (Kirk and Broadhead, 2007: 13)

Activities

• Stakeholder Reference Group,• Knowledge Review,• Networking,• National Conference,• Web-site,• Links to the Integrated Qualifications Framework,• Reports.

Stakeholder Reference Group

• Partners,• Regulatory Bodies (e.g. the Training Development

Agency, General Teaching Council, the General Social Care Council),

• Higher Education representative bodies (e.g. JUC-SWEC & UCET Universities Council for the Education of Teachers),

• Employer organisations.

Knowledge Review

Research question: What is known about the nature, contexts and participants in IPE in Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) in England that brings together students from two or more disciplines to contribute to the development of collaborative practice with children, young people and their families?

» Research review.» Practice Survey. » Policy map.

A common understanding of terms

Interprofessional education: ‘Occasions when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care’ (Freeth et al. 2005, p. 112).

Integrated services: ‘A set of processes and actions by which partners ensure outcome-focused front-line delivery. It means a holistic approach within which needs can be identified and priorities – national and local - can be addressed’ (DfES 2005 Statutory Guidance on Inter-Agency Collaboration to Improve the Well-being of Children).

).

Research Review Methodology

• Leads from each HEA Subject Centre asked to identify up to 3 key journals in their own discipline (or involving their own discipline with others) considered to be the most likely outlets for publication of papers about the involvement of HE in Integrated Children’s Services.

• Where the recommended journals turned out to yield few or no relevant articles, or could not be accessed, Subject Centre leads were asked to nominate further journals, which were also scrutinised.

• Identified journals from some disciplines yielded far less relevant material than others.

Research Review Key Findings

• Learning for integrated children’s services is inadequately conceptualised and theorised;

• Variable findings - researchers agree about the logistical challenges of developing interprofessional learning for integrated children’s services;

• Dearth of robust evidence about outcomes for students; outcomes for children, young people and families are rarely discussed.

Practice Survey in HEIs

Scoping study of HE Practice re ICS: on-line and telephone survey (Sept-Dec 2007) of 36 universities (43 interviewees) in England plus one each in Wales and NI.

There is a wealth of innovative initiatives at all levels, and primarily at foundation and undergraduate levels, in full programmes, individual modules, practice and work-based learning.

Typology of approaches to IPE for ICS-HE

• 6: Four types of integrated children’s services provision in HEIs

1. Interprofessional students and interprofessional staff.

2. Uniprofessional students and interprofessional staff.

3. Uniprofessional students and uniprofessional staff teaching interprofessional issues.

4. Generic non-professional programmes and interprofessional staff.

Enabling factors for ICS-HE

• Enthusiastic students.• Entrepreneurial interest, individual commitment.• Senior HEI leadership.• Strategic cross-faculty appointments. • External partnerships with stakeholders.• Seed funding (e.g. by HEIs or stakeholders).• Seminar programme to promote and disseminate.• Linked to research.• 7 HEI’s ‘whole system change’ most or all of the

above; most opt for incremental change.

Enthusiastic students and staff

• ‘After ECM: Integrated Working - An Interprofessional Conference for Pre-Qualifying Teachers and Social Workers’, University of Sussex

• Day-long conference first held Spring 2007 230 students MA Social Work and PGCE; 2008 added level 3 BA; 2009 will include medical students.

• Focus on clarifying roles and responsibilities re the Lead Professional

• Launched placement shadowing• Generated IP working group working on IPL re communication

skills using Reusable Learning Objects

Leading and brokering change in the HEI

• Dean or PVC who can bring together internal and external stakeholders and commit resource

• New posts eg Head of IPL who work across boundaries, knotworking and co-configuring (Engestrom, 1999)

• Collaborative working: General Social Care Council, the General Teaching Council for England and the Nursing and Midwifery Council developed ‘Working Together in Children’s Services: A Statement of Shared Values for Interprofessional Working’.

Partnerships with stakeholders

Local Authorities partnerships

eg Liverpool John Moores University and 6 Merseyside Local Authorities ‘Learn Together Partnership’ multi-level (Levels 2, 3 and M) programme for children’s services; in 2007 the partnership was accredited to offer the programme in-house.

Barriers to ICS-HE

• Equivocal research findings from existing IPE & mixed views about ‘transferability’

• Variable interpretations by HEI’s of ‘integrated children’s services’ and implications for HE.

• Disciplinary ‘silos.’• Departmental administrative boundaries.• Lack of suitable space for large groups. • Lack of development time and funding.• Need sustained stakeholder support (business case). • Lack of synergy between accrediting bodies.• Fast changing, complex policy context and fragmented

practice context.

Taking risks with curriculum change in the HEI

• ‘People face not only the challenge of acquiring established culture; they also face situations in which they must formulate desirable culture’ (Engestrom 1999, p.35)

• Investing in formulating a business case in the context of fast changing policy, lack of evidence, lack of resource, lack of co-ordination by accrediting bodies.

Silos and boundaries

ECM ’Exhorts professionals to form teams around the child and family, but how they should work together and what is to be taken from old practices, and what will need to be constructed as new practice, is unclear’ (Leadbetter et al, 2007, p.86).

Dealing with professional identity and difference.

‘In the current policy context the prevalence of policy and strategic literature that emphasises good practice models is unsurprising but tends to perpetuate the notion of interagency working as a virtuous solution to ‘joined-up’ social problems and to under-acknowledge interagency working as a site of tensions and contradictions, rather than an ideal model of service deliver.’

(Warmington et al, 2004, Introduction).

Recommendations (1)

• Government should involve HE as strategic partners in researching, developing and implementing policy & practice for the ICS workforce, nationally & regionally;

• Universities should strengthen their links with SSCs and employers and appoint ICS coordinators;

• Regulatory bodies should explore collaboration, building on initiatives like the Joint Statement of interprofessional values underpinning work with children and young people (GTC, GSCC, NMC);

Recommendations (2)

• Professional bodies should commission initiatives;• Employers, supported by government should

collaborate with universities to develop programmes with a sustainable and robust business case;

• Children, young people and families should be supported to contribute to learning, teaching and assessment;

• Research funders should target funding to ensure a robust evidence-base and to develop the conceptual and theoretical base essential to learning for ICS;

• The Higher Education Academy and Subject Centres should extend the dissemination of the ICS-HE project across disciplines and stakeholder groups, and support educators through information exchanges and briefings.

Recommendations (3)

Discussion

‘Just as ECM calls for a reconceptualisation of teaching so it also demands a re-conceptualisation of teacher education. It demands a re-structuring of the total programme in such a way that ECM principles become embedded and are made to permeate the student teachers’ university based studies and placement activities’

(Kirk, G. and Broadhead, 2007: 13)

References

• Engestrom, Y. (1999) Innovative learning in work teams: analysing cycles of knowledge creation in practice. In Perspectives on Activity Theory (eds Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.L. Punamaki). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

• Freeth, D., Hammick, M., Reeves, S., Koppel, I., and Barr, H (2005) Effective Interprofessional Education: Development, Delivery, Evaluation. Oxford, Blackwell

• Kirk, G. and Broadhead, P. (2007) Every Child Matters and Teacher Education: Towards a UCET Position Paper. Universities Council for the Education of Teachers.

• Warmington, P., Daniels, H., Edwards, A., Brown, S., Leadbetter, J., Martin, D. and Middleton, D. (2004) Interagency Collaboration: A review of the Literature. ESRC Teaching and Learning Programme III