Multi-agency services: leading and managing change

"The role has offered opportunities to help others to think 'outside the box' to be less institutional and consider children's needs more holistically." - Manager quoted in survey of behaviour and education support teams (BESTs)

As a manager of a multi-agency setting, you are at the heart of improving services for children and at the forefront of developments in leadership practice. You are, and need to be supported as, a pioneer of responsive, customer-led, joined-up working. Much of this work will involve breaking down boundaries and challenging the status quo.

Managers in multi-agency settings say that some of the most common challenges they face are:

• Helping people perceive their role in terms of outcomes rather than their professional backgrounds
  
  
• Helping practitioners reinterpret their professional role against a backdrop of changed expectations about how professionals should operate in a group
  
  
• Managing the anxiety of professionals who may be anxious that parts of their job can be done by staff who do not share their qualifications
  
  
• Managing the anxiety of unqualified support workers that their skills are ignored by professionally qualified colleagues
  
  
• Positioning the team so it can act as a catalyst for systemic change where necessary
  
  
• Overcoming cultural and practice barriers to achieve common goals and maximum productivity
  
  
• A reluctance to 'step out of the box' and work in new and flexible ways to support children, young people and families

In addition, there can be specific challenges for managers of multi-agency panels or other settings where team members are seconded on a part-time basis:

• Professional conflict and boundary issues that can arise if people work to the agenda of their home agency rather than that of the multi-agency setting
  
  
• Lack of support for individuals from their managers in their home agency, particularly with regard to new ways of working
  
  
• Helping practitioners maintain realistic caseloads, particularly when they are still carrying out statutory work in their home agencies
  
  
• Managing distinct working practices, including when and how to intervene

"When people join the team I have to help them remove their professional badges and to identify as a member of this team, working to a common goal." - Manager, BEST

All of these challenges relate to the need for changes in professional practice, identities and relationships. This section has information on some theoretical and practical aspects of managing change:

• Setting and communicating a vision 
  
  
• Organisational culture
  
  
• How people respond to change
  
  
• Advice on managing change 

Case study

Making the change to multi-agency working
Outlines the change management process adopted in Surrey for its new service HOPE, an integrated service which supports 11-18-year-olds with severe mental health, behavioural, emotional and relationship difficulties.