QUÉ ES CROMATOGRAFÍA VERDE

In summary, the schools and day care cluster seemed less meaningful since five respondents suggested that it was a meaningful cluster, with four suggesting that it was meaningful only to “some extent”. Again, there was an extensive list of potential additions. Here, the roles of significance were the workers with the most direct contact in these locations including counsellors, those in informal support roles, and family centre workers. Respondents suggested that new workers need clarity in terms of other workers’ roles and professional boundaries. It was also clear that children, young people and their families need help to navigate through the multitude of workers they come into contact with. There were calls for one key person to orchestrate this. The perceived divisions between education and social care began to emerge in this category, so although there was acknowledgment that workers should co-operate extensively in this category, the schools were seen as operating in a culture of isolation and insularity which clearly would not facilitate interagency working.

THE COMMUNITY AND CHILDREN’S HOME CLUSTER This group consisted of:

 outreach and family support workers  portage workers

 social work assistants

 healthcare assistants (with disabled children)  parenting practitioners

 occupational therapy aides

Is this a meaningful cluster?

This was seen as a reasonably meaningful cluster, with seven respondents agreeing that it was meaningful and four suggesting that they were unsure or that it was meaningful “to some extent”. Again, many roles were thought to be missing. Although it was acknowledged that ‘there’s a difference between people who are doing a service where they are going into the child’s home and those who are doing a general service in the community … where the child comes to them’ (R12), the notion of community or venues within the community created some problems, as the same respondent suggested that ‘it’s so broad it doesn’t make sense’ (R12).

‘To some extent it is, but it doesn’t fully mirror the workforce in this area. There are hundreds of roles missing – off the top of my head – young carers support staff, drug and alcohol support workers etc. The list is currently too limited and needs to include others’ (R2).

‘I think looked after children see so many random people, really. They see nurses, and education support people, and individual education plan people, and they have the adverse and strangely unique experience of having multiple strangers in their lives that mainstream, ordinary children don’t, you know’ (R15).

The factors that make these roles fit together

It was acknowledged that these are people that often do direct work with children, but that it was also quite a diverse group, with a diverse set of roles within each. One respondent stated for example ‘The ones that are there are OK. The problem is that each of these roles is very different and they don’t hang together coherently – they all need different skill and knowledge sets’ (R2).

For some, this was perceived as a group of workers which did not necessarily fit in with the other categories and were described as the ‘left-overs’, for example, ‘Well I suppose really there’s very little that fits together apart from that its services for children and their families’ (R1). ‘The first two groups have more in common with each other than with the third.’ (R5).

Should any be in a different grouping?

Again, several roles were mentioned here, including parenting practitioners (R3), portage workers (R6, R7) and mentors in day care (R13), which were all described as ‘specialist’ or ‘specific intervention’ roles which, perhaps, were too specialist for this category. Outreach and family support was also described as ‘a very big category’ with many potentially different attachments which would impact on their suitability to be included in this category. Some outreach, for example outreach workers with youth, including sexual health or substance advice, were described as being

(FULL REPORT V1.0 – JULY 2010)

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Is anyone missing from this group?

Again, the respondents came up with an extensive list of potential additions including:  advocates

 informal support youth workers  mentors

 young carers

 support staff, drug and alcohol support workers  occupational therapists

 enablers (disabled children)  community workers

 peer support workers

 domiciliary care staff providing pre-school support for children in their own homes (although the regulation of these is very adult-focused)

Two roles that are normally associated with older people were also mentioned here, including home care workers since in reality there are many of them supporting vulnerable families with getting children ready for school, preparing meals, and general practical support where a parent is disabled or cannot cope for a number of reasons.

What sort of roles would you consider to be important currently?

Acknowledged this as being a wide and diverse group, then, the respondents did not identify any one role as being more important than the other in this category; however, the increased responsibilities for these workers was highlighted, particularly in terms of safeguarding children:

‘I think again it’s hard to say any of those jobs were more important than others from our point of view’ (R1).

‘There is an increasing amount of responsibility on staff in this grouping – they need better and more safeguarding to support them to do their job’ (R14).

How might these change for the foreseeable future?

Changing social circumstances, such as the difficult financial climate, were thought to have an impact on this workforce, where, for example, a shortage of social workers would necessarily lead to the increased role for family support workers who would have to ‘bridge the gap’ (R3). The need for the family support worker to ‘get in there before cases escalate to the stage where they need a qualified worker’ (R3) also emphasised the stronger focus on early prevention work. The changing nature of the family unit was also highlighted as an important factor here which would impact on the workforce ability to respond:

‘I think that it is also important to acknowledge that the nature of the family unit is changing and is more complex than it used to be – step parents, mixed cultures, same sex relationships etc and the workforce needs to be equipped to respond to the changing supportneeds of families’ (R3).

A variety of social care agendas, including social pedagogy (R3), the personalisation agenda (R3, R4), and the ‘Think Family’ agenda (R14) were also considered to be factors that would impact on future services. As one respondent suggested ‘Services will be driven by what people want rather than by what’s available’ (R3).

How would or should this group of staff interact with staff in other sectors?

Interactions with workers in other sectors were not really considered to be any different for workers in this category. Although one respondent suggested that the development of Children’s Trusts and joint commissioning may have impact in the future acknowledging that ‘At the moment, there is no real joint commissioning but if this started to happen, we would see the emergence of better multi- agency working in this area and roles would emerge to accommodate this’ (R4). Key issues continued to be sharing information, and working together in a child focused way (R1). It was also acknowledged that people working with adults are often in contact with children - for example community mental health nurses and substance misuse workers - and that communication in this area is crucial (R14). Issues of perceived status, role and authority and the potential marginalisation of some people in this category was acknowledged and, as one respondent suggested, ‘How does one facilitate their full and proper role in assessments and decision making?’ (R13).