ENGAGE

Guest Contribution

I am used to waving people goodbye at stations and turning round, and heading back to my routine. This time I was unexpectedly beckoned on to a moving train. The general direction was appealing. Several other trains were also leaving on parallel lines. The tracks seem to interweave, crossing and re-crossing each other en route. The destinations are set but, to my surprise, the laying of track ahead is unfinished. Passing through each carriage, I am encouraged to join huddles of passengers or planners, who are debating route options, demand, itineraries and services, even as we travel.

The analogy quickly fails! However, it conveys something of the experience of an unexpected move, a few weeks ago. I was invited to be a seconded "professional adviser" to the Youth Justice and Children's Hearings Division, within the "Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) Team". I work for the Scottish Executive the equivalent of two days a week, and am otherwise employed by City of Edinburgh Council as a Family Group Conference Co-ordinator. There are a scattering of seconded professional advisers in other teams, and more due to arrive to add their perspective to arguments about the practice implications of legal and policy developments in progress.

I arrived here, sharply aware of some dominant concerns currently affecting colleagues in practice, such as:

• ever rising numbers of children affected by problem drug use within their families, (estimated at 12000 in Edinburgh alone)
• a Hearing's system straining to deliver effective decision making for a volume of referrals never previously experienced,
• children and families services grappling with parallel increases in child protection referrals, while adapting to fundamental procedural and organisational changes.

It seems essential that I retain a sense of such difficulties, when considering the demands as well as the advantages of recommended changes.

The central aims of the GIRFEC Team are:

• to support legal and systemic changes which will make the Hearings more effective in decision making for children who need compulsory measures;
• divert children from the Hearings system unless they need compulsory measures;
• and make sure any child who needs extra help gets the necessary assessment and planned services with minimum bureaucracy, duplication or delay.

I was apprehensive about rules of engagement here but have felt welcomed at all times. The culture of debate within and between branches and "Bill teams" working up policy instructions for solicitors seems tolerant, open and responsive. Requests for information or comment receive a rapid reply where possible. Response to invited comment has been open minded (with alternative perspectives welcomed and ignorant diversions courteously ignored). For a social worker, this has seemed like a privileged opportunity to contribute to and learn from essential changes within public services . I feel lucky to be here, even in passing.

However, there is also potential for bewilderment, because there are a number of legal and policy developments which have been steaming down interwoven but independent tracks for several years – within adoption and fostering (with the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill almost hatched), in Youth Justice; in child protection and public information sharing (the Bichard Bill); with integrated assessment; and reform of the Children's Hearings system. Each affects the other, and though change must be congruent, and some definitions have to be completely consistent, the underpinning legal reforms are not choreographed in sequence . They are independent. This seems to generate what can seem to a newcomer like an epileptic sequence of meetings about specific problems and overlapping areas of interest, which go off at tangents as new ambiguities or uncertainties arise. Some deadlines appear to be enjoyed mainly, "..for the whooshing noise as they go by" (as Douglas Adams put it), whereas others are clearly set in stone. I have not worked out which are which, despite complex coloured charts copied me on my first morning.

Proposed changes have exposed and will reveal more problems and tensions on the ground. Such challenges have been investigated through national consultation, and are being explored through pathfinder projects and, will be further evaluated within the pilots through independently commissioned research. Professional advisers are here to offer an additional reality check.

Each adviser is likely to bring specific concerns or hopes to their invited contributions. For example, I hope that the pressure and expectation to improve professional services and professional co-operation in child protection and child care planning – is balanced by an emphasis on engaging key family members in decision making about children, where this is safely possible.

The quality of the office environment is bound to affect contribution and teamwork here – and conditions are excellent – quiet, light, well equipped, with team members who are in the building sitting nearby in open plan. I can come and go at all hours. These things are important to me, and there has been a flexible attitude to the way I fulfil my commitments which has considerably reduced the stress of adjustment. I am only a couple of weeks in to the task but already have a sense that the Executive practice of secondment complements and supports realistic development and change both centrally and locally, while providing a unique learning experience for the individuals involved.

James Cox
Professional Adviser
Getting it Right for Every Child Team