Deliver better outcomes for children
Teamwork training to help deliver better outcomes for children and young people in London and the South East.
A tailored development programme to help multi-agency teams deliver better outcomes for children, young people and families will be rolled out locally in London and the South East from January 2008.
VT Education and Skills in partnership with national learning charity ContinYou will deliver the National College for School Leadership’s Multi-Agency Team Development (MATD) programme after winning a contract for the London and South East Regions.
Over the next three years, VT Education and Skills and ContinYou will work with hundreds of multi-agency teams, helping to transform the lives of children and young people.
Nationally about 400 teams - made up of school leaders, teachers, health experts, social workers, police officers, children’s services professionals and voluntary sector workers - will benefit from the programme over the next three years.
The Multi Agency Team Development Programme (MATD) is one of the first of its kind and is designed to make a significant contribution to the government’s Every Child Matters (ECM) policy initiative. ECM is aimed at providing more joined up children’s services to ensure every child has the best possible start in life. It is challenging schools to remove barriers to learning and achievement by working collaboratively with the community and other agency partners.
Rosemary Goodwin, VT Education and Skills MATD Project Manager, said: "It is so important for multi-agency teams to enhance their development and improve their ways of working. Cultural and behavioural change will encourage new types of thinking and enable teams to operate as a seamless service for children and young people."
The MATD roll out across nine government office regions from January 2008 follows the National College for School Leadership’s successful two year pilot involving 19 multi agency teams.
Maggie Farrar, NCSL’s Operational Director for ECM and Standards, said:
“This is an inspiring and challenging programme with the aim of delivering better outcomes for children, young people, families and those working with them by developing effective teamwork between schools and other agencies. The course is about helping teams to transcend organisational boundaries and work well together tackling real projects and issues.”
MATD is an option for multi agency teams at any stage of formation. Typically they will consist of about eight to 10 members and must include representatives from at least three statutory government agencies plus an extended school or a cluster of schools. Representatives from voluntary and community groups can also enrol.
The programme is over six months, comprising a 24-hour residential event and four one-day facilitator-led workshops. Also included is a team personality assessment profile, work with actors, and an option of working closely with consultants in a team’s locality between events.
In one of the pilots, Joanna Eade and Elena Mauro, Joint Head of School at Loughborough Primary School and Children Centre in Lambeth, were part of a multi-agency team consisting of the Metropolitan Police, Lambeth Primary Care Trust, school governors and the voluntary sector working on a project to bring together a wide range of agencies to deliver services to families within the community from a single point - the Children Centre, which opened in November 2006.
Joanna said: “The course validated our feeling that we needed to look beyond the classroom into the community in order to meet the needs of the child within a family. It raised the profile of ECM within the national context. It was a powerful tool to help a variety of different agencies with different cultures to work together effectively.”
Members of multi agency teams who wish to find out more about the Multi Agency Team Development Programme can visit: www.ncsl.org.uk/matd or for an informal discussion on how the programme would work for your team please call Rosemary Goodwin on 01372 834431 or email matd@vtplc.com.
