Peter
Limbrick writes -
The
present situation with multi-agency Keyworkers in the UK:
In
existing projects multi-agency Keyworkers can be from statutory
services or from voluntary bodies.
They
can be single-role or they can be shared-role.
Single-role
Keyworkers just do keyworking. This requires money for new teams
of practitioners. Shared-role Keyworkers do some keyworking in
addition to their main role as therapist, health visitor, teacher,
etc. This extra work is likely to overload busy practitioners
if the keyworking system is not properly designed and resourced.
In
my experience, the multi-agency Keyworker’s functions can include:
·
Giving some emotional support
to family members
·
Helping the family get information
about the child’s condition
·
Helping the family get information
about available support services
·
Helping the family open doors
to those support services
·
Being an advocate with a small
‘a’
·
Helping co-ordinate all the elements
of support
·
Helping integrate the young child’s
programmes into a whole approach
·
Promoting parents of young children
as equal partners with a central role
·
Helping older children to get
their voice heard
Most
families who need a multi-agency Keyworker do not have one.
The
great majority of multi-agency keyworking projects in the UK have
been done on a shoestring.
So
how viable are they?
How
viable is your service? Here are 9 questions.
|
|
Question |
TICK
|
|
1 |
Do
you have multi-agency keyworkers? And if not, why not?
(This
is a serious question because keyworking is not easy to
establish but soon it will be included in statutory inspections) |
|
|
2 |
Do
you have clear multi-agency criteria about which families
are offered Keyworkers and are these criteria in line with
Together from the Start and NSF? |
|
|
3 |
Have
you been able to progress from the pilot stage into an established
multi-agency keyworking service? |
|
|
4 |
Have
you been able to progress from temporary funding to permanent
funding? |
|
|
5 |
Is
your multi-agency keyworking built into administrative and
management systems?
(i.e.
are protocols agreed, is it monitored and evaluated, does
keyworking appear in job descriptions, etc.?) |
|
|
6 |
Do
your multi-agency Keyworkers have sufficient administrative/clerical
support for their tasks? |
|
|
7 |
Do
you have sufficient resources and funds now to offer multi-agency
Keyworkers to all families in your locality who meet your
agreed criteria? |
|
|
8 |
If
not, do you have an agreed expansion programme with guaranteed
resources and funds to get you to the point where you can
offer multi-agency Keyworkers to all families in your locality
who meet your agreed criteria? |
|
|
9 |
Will
your multi-agency keyworking project still be running in
ten years time?
|
|
What
did you score?
If
almost all of your answers were positive, this
is brilliant. The children and families in your locality are very
fortunate. How have you achieved this?
If
your answers were 50% positive and 50% negative you
are definitely on the way. But beware! Your multi-agency keyworking
service is probably vulnerable to loss of financial support, loss
of management support or to soon finding itself with many more
families than it can cope with.
If
almost all of your answers were negative, keep
going, it is worth the effort and your families will benefit.
But it might be time to take stock:
·
Apart from you, who is taking
keyworking seriously in your locality?
·
Who is helping you to develop
the service?
·
Do you have multi-agency senior
managers supporting you?
·
What resources have you been
given?
·
Are your Keyworkers overloaded?
·
How are you going to expand to
support more families?
·
How can you build some staying
power into your service?
Your
comments are welcomed.
Peter
Limbrick
E-mail:
p.limbrick@virgin.net
|
