FAME is leading the way in aiding services to implement multi-agency working. FAME has been successfully supporting many organisations and Local Authorities in information sharing. FAME has also seen increase in their use of their services in the past month and has been a vital instrument in helping a number of child organisations.
This month FAME has seen more people access the FAME website (www.fame-uk.org) each week than ever before with an average of 1,000 unique hits a week. The Readiness Assessment Tool has been downloaded more from an audience of all around the world. People are recognising that FAME is a refreshingly simple way for emerging or established partnerships to understand how to improve joint working within children’s services. Over the last month alone, FAME has seen well over 1000 more people accessing the website for the first time, including many child based services.
Children’s services is an area of public sector particularly known for it’s complexity in terms of multi-agency working, spanning local authority inter-departmental cross-over and covering many other organisations involved in healthcare, education and social services, relating to children.
FAME has recently supported the work of a number of voluntary sector organisations that work with children at risk, alongside the public sector, including Barnardo’s, FAME has been aiding them to address the challenges of developing multi-agency working and information sharing within their organisation.
Julie Moller, Assistant Director of Children’s Services for Barnardo’s North East, says; “The FAME team has supported us in the development of our thinking through our discussions with DfES and other organisations we work alongside, regarding the national child index and the local index in Gateshead and Newcastle.
Pat Cummins, also of Barnardo’s North East and Chair of the Gateshead/Newcastle Passport to Service project believes the Every Child Matters Agenda depends on agencies working together in the interest of children and families on the pooling of energy, knowledge and expertise to achieve better outcomes for children.
Pat believes FAME provides the framework in which these agencies can work together; “A federated model where agencies keep their own information and are able to share with appropriate regard for the client's wishes and with agreed protocols sounds a good deal more safe, rational and desirable than the most common picture of a huge database. This is the model which FAME helps people to see, understand and to work for together. It protects the innocent, it safeguards independence, and it enables that shared sense of better outcomes which is demanded by Every Child Matters.”
There is real urgency in this field at the moment, as people’s level of understanding of these issues is really low. The broad experience of the FAME team and their acknowledgement that these issues of multi-agency working are challenging, and the additional insight we have gained through using this framework of understanding, has been very valuable in our development as an organisation.”
Roger Vaughan, visiting professor of the Newcastle University Business School and a member of the FAME team comments; “Local Authorities have so far concentrated on their own internal partnerships. As the Children's Trust agenda rolls out, cross agency information sharing is increasingly important to get the most benefit from the new Child Index and Common Assessment Framework. FAME is working on solutions to provide the infrastructure to enable this to happen.”
Multi-agency information sharing can improve outcomes, such as in common assessments, where joined up working becomes a practical solution. Implementing the Child Index is also a common problem for all regional councils and agencies, and project management resources could be shared. Partnerships could manage research, development and dissemination in order to share and reduce costs.
Andy Roberts, Children’s Trust Manager at Newcastle City Council, has already invested time into using the FAME framework at Newcastle within his department, in order to address the problem of services not properly joining up properly, and to enable the implementation of an effective solution.
He says; “I believe that it is a real priority for local authorities to address these issues within children’s services because it enables an improved service to citizens. Improving efficiency and speed of delivery is important within every area of service, but I believe when working with those who are most vulnerable such as children, the issue is even more urgent to address.”
The FAME team are currently involved in some sizeable progression work including the development of a regional demonstrator which will provide the tools for multi-agency partnerships to address key practical issues such as information sharing, working within organizational structures, the legal implications and cultural requirements of implementing change.
There are also plans to progress on the engagement of suppliers, to influence and move forward plans for product development and product strategy, and to engage with the Child Index, SNEN, Health, E CAF and Government Connect.
FAME is an essential component in enabling Local Authorities and other sectors to successfully create multi-agency partnerships in order to effectively operate in a multi-agency environment.
The FAME toolkit has been established to enable Local Authorities to overcome the difficulties associated with the sharing of information, including the complex issues of trust, security and governance. It offers shared, applied learning and provides a framework of understanding to begin to think through and really address this issue.
Quelle: Publictechnology, 07.03.2006
