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Building a partnership

Building a partnership: the children's service's director

How do you build effective partnership working across children's services?  Julie Nightingale finds out.

It is five years since the Every Child Matters agenda ushered in a new era of partnership working between all of the professionals involved in children's education, health and welfare.

Much progress has been made in inter-agency working under ECM during this time but leadership in this multi-layered environment remains a highly complex - and challenging - task.

For one thing, partnership working clearly means more than simply agreeing to work with others, agrees Ann Baxter, Director of Children's Services (DCS) in the London borough of Camden. "It's not formulaic and "if you pull this lever you will get it," she says. "You have to build relationships with people you work with and see the world through their eyes."

Ann's role encompasses health, education and the broad category of social care. She oversees schools, early years services, children's centres, fostering and adoption, teams dealing with children with disabilities or looked after children, youth services and youth offending teams, and also commissions a range of services from others. It brings her into contact with a range of leaders externally across the borough and also inside the authority, from the borough commander of police to chief executive of the Primary Care Trust (PCT), voluntary sector leaders, and children and young people themselves.

She has statutory meetings with partners for the children's trust and the partnership board, and sub-group meetings, but there are also informal meetings with individuals on specific issues and she makes a point of meeting frontline staff, aiming, for example, to visit every school in the borough over the year.

A model of leadership with the boss at the apex of a hierarchy and supported by a senior management team would not work in this world where different agendas overlap and sometimes collide but where no individual leader has the power to overrule.

"The kind of structure where 'the buck stops with you' and everyone knows where they fit doesn't apply," she says. "It's about influence and negotiation and discussion, attention to detail but also big strategy. It's not just about leading the services for which you are directly accountable."

Rather, she says, the direction is set through a common vision to which all sign up – "It's about having a shared understanding of why we are all here."

Ann began her career as a ‘knocking on doors’ social worker in 1974 in the London borough of Newham but her professional background is not an issue for partners from other sectors now,  she says - "although in the first few years, that was almost the first question people asked: "Which team are you from?'"

What's important, she emphasises, is that the culture of collaboration is set at the highest level and so will become woven through each service and organisation – "Then you hope people stop asking what background you are from and recognise that this is what children's services is."

In fact, it is the external requirements of other organisations or changes in their national policies or structures, rather than individuals from different sectors digging their heels in, that creates some of the biggest challenges.

Ann explains: "For example, one of our performance indicators (PI) in children's services is to reduce the number of first-time entrants to the youth justice system. On the other hand, for colleagues in the police, one of their PIs is to increase the charging of young people, so there would be more advantage to them in charging young people who drop litter. Often it's these externally imposed limitations that are the most challenging."

There can also be difficult conversations with internal partners around the council table.

"Anti-social behaviour, for example, is a key issue in the council. For some groups in our community, young people will always be seen as a threat and community safety colleagues may be under pressure to talk about young people in terms of 'gangs'. But in children's services, we should be celebrating young people. So it's about trying to establish a positive culture and attitude towards children and young people across the authority."

Rather like children themselves, then, partnerships and inter-agency relationships demand ongoing care and attention and the job is never finished. Those involved need drive, optimism and persistence because the children's services agenda and partnership working is a 10-year programme, Ann points out.

"Just because it's written down doesn't mean it's happening. It will take a number of years to change the culture."

DCS programme

The National College is working with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) and the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC), on a raft of development and support for children’s services professionals, including the Director of Children’s Services (DCS) Leadership Programme.

The first 28 participants began the programme in November 2009. Registration for future cohorts, starting in spring 2010, begins this autumn.

The programme will:

  • Recognise the complex challenges and accountability of the director of children’s services role and the wide range of backgrounds, skills and experience that people bring to the role.
  • Cover the many different aspects of leadership required, including leadership of safeguarding and social care, commissioning, leading in political and corporate environments, integrated and partnership working, and raising standards of education.
  • Be personalised.
  • Place a significant emphasis on team leadership – supporting on the development of high-performing teams in local authorities and children’s trusts.
  • Build upon the National Professional Development Framework for Leading and Managing Children’s Services in England.
  • Offer the opportunity for Master’s level and further accreditation.

Next steps:

Further information and resources

Find out more about the DCS Leadership programmes by contacting the College's DCS team at dcsprovision@nationalcollege.org.uk.

The National College is holding a Leading Practice seminar on safeguarding in December.