Children’s Services: Information, Strategy

and Practice

Ruth Rogan - NewcastleRoger Vaughan cSBI

Where we were…

• Children Act • Legislative framework for what is

offered to ‘children in need’ • Silo based services• Concentration on acute issues• Lack of multi agency information

sharing • Service based output performance

Where we are going?

• Green paper > new Children Bill• Good outcomes for all children/young

people• Focus on prevention/supporting

‘vulnerability’• “Joined up problems need joined up

solutions” - transformed services• Multi agency working - which entails

information sharing

The new landscape of inclusion

• A rights based approach to desired outcomes for all children and young people in Newcastle:– Healthy– Safe– Fulfilled– Participating– Economically included

Mapping the landscape

• Develop a map of existing provision.• Communicate the landscape.• Understand the resourcing of

provision.• Change the landscape/resourcing

responding to policy, practice, children and young peoples’ agenda.

Universal

EducationEducation

HealthHealth

Targeted

Sure StartSure Start

Children’s FundChildren’s Fund

ConnexionsConnexions

Family SupportFamily Support

‘Hubs’‘Hubs’

Specialist

CWDCWD

Children with Disabilities

CAMHSCAMHS

Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service

LDLD

Learning Disabilities

SENSEN Special Educationa

l needs

YOTYOT Youth Offending

Team

DATDATDrug

Action Team

HSHS

Hosp’tServ’s

Reh

ab

ilitativ

e

Universal Targeted Specialist

EducationEducation

HealthHealth

Sure StartSure Start

Children’s FundChildren’s Fund

ConnexionsConnexions

‘Hubs’‘Hubs’

CWDCWDC&AMHSC&AMHS

LDLD

SENSEN

YOTYOT

DATDAT

HSHS

Looked After ChildrenLooked After Children

Adoption & FosteringAdoption & Fostering

Area Child Protection Committee

Area Child Protection Committee

Child ProtectionChild Protection

ISAFamily SupportFamily Support

Reh

ab

ilitativ

e

Universal Targeted Specialist

EducationEducation

HealthHealth

Sure StartSure Start

Children’s FundChildren’s Fund

ConnexionsConnexions

‘Hubs’‘Hubs’

CWDCWDCAMHSCAMHS

LDLD

SENSEN

YOTYOT

DATDAT

HSHS

Looked After ChildrenLooked After Children

Adoption & FosteringAdoption & Fostering

Area Child Protection Committee

Area Child Protection Committee

Child ProtectionChild Protection

Family SupportFamily Support

Local Preventative Strategy

ISA

Understanding practice

• Ethnographic analysis - – understanding the practitioner’s world

through the eyes of practitioners.– Understanding the parents and carers

world through their eyes to allow practitioners to make sense of it.

– Understanding the world of service managers.

What does this look like to different participants?

We must recognise four ‘world views’ -held by:

• Citizens/service users• Service delivery practitioners/managers• Corporate commissioning• National governance

Citizens/service users

• This view includes – the public, – service users, – their families, – supporting social networks, – self-help and community groups…

• It is where vulnerability is experienced.

• Q - “Who can advise or help us?”

Service delivery

• This includes service delivery practitioners including preventative, targeted, specialist and protection services, GPs, hospitals and schools, voluntary organisations, one-stop-shops..

• This is where vulnerability is observed.• Q - “Who needs help from us?”• Q – “How can we best shape that help?”

Corporate commissioning

• Includes those who frame local political/professional priorities through understanding the demographics, making sense of national policies and who configure services.

• They are accountable for ‘public value’ • Q- “How do we tackle social exclusion in

Newcastle?”

National governance

• This includes government legislation, guidance, league tables.

• Professional bodies/codes of practice.• Representative organisations,

lobbying. • Q- “How do we resolve national

spending priorities?”

Common processes

Each of these ‘worlds’ involves:• Making sense of what is going on in

our own and other ‘worlds.’• Making strategies for what we should

do in the future.• Doing what we do today (operational

practice)

….and information systems?

• People carrying out these processes in different ‘worlds’ need to:– Message– Publish, search and collate– Transact– Co-ordinate

• How are these needs met by current information systems?

Typically…

WebE-pubs

‘research’ ‘surveys’

PAF?NationalGovernance

Finance, HR

GIS?Outcomes?

Web?CorporateComm’ning

Care recordICS, IRT…..

Assessing outcomes?

Web?ServiceDelivery

E-booking??Directories

?Web?Digital tv?

Citizens

Operationalpractice

Strategicthinking

Sensemaking

Confidentiality in a multi agency information

architecturePeople in each ‘world’ need to:• Recognise the role of consent to

information sharing.• Be able to share information with

people who need it to provide or receive care.

• Be confident about the security and legality of information sharing.

• Take part in the governance of information and its use.

…and it’s all changing!

• And it always will…can we keep up?• A move away from service led

provision• Silo-based policies and fixed

information systems applications will hold us back!

• How can practitioners make sure that they get what they want/need from information systems for their multi agency practice?

….multi agency working is hard!

• “Different professional cultures.• Different statutory responsibilities.• Availability of time, people,

resources.• Different agency structures.• Perceptions of professional group

status• Different conditions of professional

work”.

Towards a new information architecture

• We need a ‘Big Picture’ of the role of information in social care.– To reflect the different needs of different

actors in their ‘worlds’.– To be sustainable in the face of

continuous change.– To be achievable incrementally.

Governance

• “Information architecture is more than technology – it’s a powerful form of governance.”

• “Outsourcing architecture is effectively the outsourcing of policy making.”

Do we want to outsource policy?• The governance of this continually

changing landscape is essential.

Governance

• The architecture of services and information architecture must be developed together.

• But if senior managers in the world of corporate commissioning are to take responsibility for policy towards architecture they must understand the capabilities of ICT.

Developing systems with practitioners - VESCR

• How can practitioners be sure they have seen all appropriate case information?

• How can we be sure we are talking about the right/same individual(s)?

• How can we collate records and documents?

• Can we display complete chronologies?

Components of a solution

• Practitioners articulate their ‘workflow’.• (processes maps are a partial answer.)• Rapid prototyping of systems.• Practitioners appropriate the process.• IT suppliers concentrate on providing

the capabilities to be appropriated by practitioners.

• This is an infrastructural approach.

Developing a strategy for children and young people

• Making sense of: – the tidal waves of national policies and

guidance.– local political and professional priorities.– the views of children and young people,

their families and carers.

• Building a strategic process

Participation

• Children and young people have the right to be heard and describe their ‘world’.

• Participation is beyond consultation - it is a means to a ‘political’ end.

• The test is - what change is sought by participation by children and young people – and has it happened?

Governance structure

• The aim of the strategy for Newcastle’s Children and Young People is to improve the lives of all children and young people significantly.

• The Strategic Partnership Board is a multi agency group, independently chaired with representation from a wide range of statutory and voluntary agencies

Governance - Board tasks

• Sustain the strategic partnership• Implement the participation strategy• Improve service configurations• Co-ordinate commissioning• Undertake Information governance• Become a learning organisation• Win fundingAnd collaborate with other partnerships.

Challenges ahead

• Legal basis for partnership working• Involving service users/citizens• Sustaining multi agency working• Governing information sharing• Developing a sustainable architecture

of information systems and services • Linking architectures – people move -

there are other partnerships out there!