Is Interagency Working in England Beneficial to Childrens Learning and Development - Essay Example

Is Interagency Working in England Beneficial to Children’s Learning and Development? College: Introduction There seem to be a shortage of evidence that supports that interagency or multi-agency working in England help in benefiting children with regard to their learning and the general development. Local authority and other government agencies have been working together for a long period of time with some people arguing that there are no benefits that are accrued from this relationship to the children. However, there have been numerous benefits that have been witnessed in various sectors like in the health, social care and deduction sector as a result of interagency workings. Interagency workings in England started long time ago around in the mid 19th century in the health and social care sectors. Nevertheless, the trend has being gaining popularity over the past few years especially since the death of Victoria Climbie on February 2000 (Siraj-Blatchford and Needham, 2007, p.56). This research paper is going to critically analyze whether interagency working in England are beneficial to children’s development and learning. Victoria Climbie decease prompted to a large and thorough research analysis of the United Kingdom child protection and development services. This led to publication of various studies highlighting the need for multiagency working and sharing of information with the main goal being to protect children, help them develop and facilitate their learning. Such studies have led to numerous reforms as it had been suggested by different publications among them being the ‘Green Pape:Every Child Matters’ which was made in 2003, a publication that prompted to a dramatic increase in the number of voluntary and non-voluntary organizations working together to help children lead a full life (Siraj-Blatchford and Needham, 2007, p.56). Agencies working alongside other agencies has proven to be an effective strategy of improving children’s outcomes of development because of the cross cutting themes that different organizations bring forth together. Coming together of different organizations and sharing information increases the probability of shielding children from any harm and most importantly promote their welfare in a way that only a few children if any have to face terrible situations like the ones Victoria Climbie faced. Publications like the ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ year 2010 highlight the need for the collaboration of the general England society in promoting and safeguarding the welfare of young people and children. As a result, many organizations have been coming together in various ways with the development of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) being the most popular approach that is being used. Various voluntary organizations have over time being playing a major role in these forums with the aim of helping children. Interagency working is all about the different services that are provided by a team of professionals, agencies among other practitioners in partnership mainly to meet children’s necessities and that of young people. Learning institutions like schools understand that some children might be having complex needs that might adversely affect their health as well as their concentration in learning among other forms of development. However, schools have been unable to fully meet these complex needs that are facing some children despite their attempt to control the situation thus calling for a pressing need to have collaboration between various agencies so as to successfully support their needs (Siraj-Blatchford and Needham, 2007, p.56). In the recent years, many schools have being partnering with other agencies so as to provide services that are beyond the school day like guidance and counseling as well as providing them with information like case studies. In most cases, the type of service to be offered depends on the agreement between school managements and the partners. Nonetheless, the following are some of the services that are commonly offered of which most of them focus on meeting the needs of the children in the local community. As mentioned in the introduction, there is not much evidence to support that interagency workings have been effective in promoting children learning and development. However, there exist a few examples of a scenario whereby interagency has been effective. To start with, there has been numerous children centers that that have been formed since the campaign for interagency started intensifying. For instance, in 1998, a program entitled as Sure Start was launched mainly to tackle the social exclusions at community level particularly for children. Sure Start was a wide program hence there was a pressing need to subdivide it in order to focus on the needs of children. This led to creation of Sure Start local programs which were comprehensive in nature and focused specifically for children below four years and their families. The program was supporting the 20% most disadvantaged geographical areas, a program that gained popularity thus received generous funding for its services (Laming and Great Britain, 2009, p.82). The main services that were being offered by the program included home and outreach visiting, supporting children with their families particularly parents, supporting quality playing for children, learning and childcare experiences. Other activities include included promoting the general community healthcare. These programs were innovative in various ways and covered all aspects of children as well as strengthening children’s families and the society in general. 250 programs were initially funded which was followed by extra financial support for the additional progress because of the Inter-departmental Childcare Review of 2002 (Siraj-Blatchford and Needham, 2007, p.51). As a result of this review, numerous programs were developed from the initially existing local authority and family centers early excellence centers. They had various had various bodies which ranged from voluntary and statutory sectors to micro community instigates and the private quarter (Laming and Great Britain, 2009, p.65). This ultimately led to the development of children center programs which continued building early excellence centers, Sure Start local programs and neighborhood nurseries with the Sure Center promising to a center in 20% most disadvantaged regions. Their dream was to establish enough children centers by the year 2008 so that every family could have effortless access to incorporated services such as information, health, childcare and family support among other services offered to children and parents. By year 2011, there were more than 3507 children’s centers all over the country center. These centers provide quality and integrated services to children below five years together with their parents, a factor that has drastically reduced the gap between children from the disadvantaged backgrounds with the rest as their mission states. This can be termed as a major step forward towards children development though a lot need to be done. They also provide early learning and full day care services for children, support children with special needs together with their families, family support services, child and family services as well as support for parents who want some training in order to compete for employment opportunities. They had also envisioned of establishing toy libraries though they had to be supported from other sources. The first children’s center to be developed was SureStart Carlisle South, which was developed in Cumbria (Laming and Great Britain, 2009, p.85). The center was developed through a Sure Start sponsorship and the local communities have benefited a lot with the services offered at the center. There have been other centers that have been developed in order to cater for special needs of the physically challenged children. Carried out studies have shown that interagency working have contributed significantly in reducing school exclusions and behavior problems. Collaboration between various agencies led to provision of high quality services to children and parents in various excellence centers. In conclusion, despite the little evidence that is available about the effectiveness of interagency, it is obvious that this collaboration has played a major role in improving the welfare of the society and in particular children development and learning. This has been achieved as a result of implementation of various initiatives like establishment of excellence and children centers that offer various services meant for children and parent well-being. Though the vision initial vision for interagency has not been fully achieved, the achievements made are highly commendable and a lot more has to be done. Such initiates have changed many children’s lives and made them better persons in the society. Some of the benefits that have been accrued from these programs include reduced school exclusions, creation of better relationship between members of the society, increased cognitive, accessibility to quality services among others. Bibliography Laming, Herbert,, & Great Britain. 2009. The protection of children in England: :a progress report. Stationery Office. London. Siraj-Blatchford, I., Clarke, K., & Needham, M. 2007. The team around the child: Multi-agency working in the early years. Trentham Books. Stoke on Trent. Read More