Education and training for the integrated children’s workforce: Implications for HE

Hilary Burgess (SWAP)Julie Anderson (ESCalate)

Helen Bulpitt (HS&P)

Plan for workshop

• Introduction.• ICS-HE Project.

– Overview,– Knowledge Review,– Conference and network,– Recommendations.

• First small work groups (Fdn; U.grad; P.grad).• Second small work groups (Making change happen).• Feedback and action points.

ICS-HE Project Overview

• Integrated Children’s Services in Higher Education (ICS-HE).

• One of 6 ‘Employer Engagement’ Projects selected by the HEA with funding from HEFCE for SCs to link with SSCs.

• Funding agreed Dec 2006; project ran May 2007-May 2008.

Intended Project Outcomes

• Raising awareness of the evolving agenda in children’s services for HE staff working across the disciplines and professions,

• Identifying examples of emergent practice for integrated provision in HE,

• Identifying barriers to change & ways to overcome these,

• Promoting collaboration between disciplines,• Contributing to knowledge generation about IPE in this

arena,• Promoting dialogue between HE and Sector Skills

Councils.

Partners

• HEA Subject Centres for:– Education (ESCalate),– Psychology,– Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine (MEDEV),– Health Sciences and Practice (HS&P),– Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP),

• Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC).• Children's Workforce Network (CWN).

Relevant disciplines and professions

• Education,• Early Years,• Social Work,• Nursing,• Midwifery,• Other allied health

professions,

• Psychology,• Youth and Community,• Careers,• Medicine,• Police,• Probation.

Policy context

• Laming Inquiry (2003) into death of Victoria Climbie,• Every Child Matters (2003),• The Children Act (2004),• Children’s Trusts,• The Children’s Plan (DCSF 2007: 17), • National Service Framework for for Children, Young

People and Maternity Services (2004+2006),• Youth Matters (2006).

FFI: http://icshe.escalate.ac.uk/1459.

Activities

• Stakeholder Reference Group,• Knowledge Review,• Networking,• National Conference,• Web-site,• Links to the IQF,• Reports.

Stakeholder Reference Group

• Partners,• Regulatory Bodies (e.g. the Training Development

Agency, General Teaching Council, the General Social Care Council),

• Higher Education representative bodies (e.g. JUC-SWEC & UCET Universities Council for the Education of Teachers),

• Employer organisations.

Knowledge Review

Prof Imogen Taylor, University of Sussex:

Research question: What is known about the nature, contexts and participants in IPE in Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) in England that brings together students from two or more disciplines to contribute to the development of collaborative practice with children, young people and their families?

» Research review.» Practice Survey. » Policy map.

A common understanding of terms

Interprofessional education: ‘Occasions when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care’ (Freeth et al. 2005, p. 112).

Integrated services: ‘A set of processes and actions by which partners ensure outcome-focused front-line delivery. It means a holistic approach within which needs can be identified and priorities – national and local - can be addressed’ (DfES 2005, p. 11).

Research Review Methodology

• Leads from each HEA Subject Centre asked to identify up to 3 key journals in their own discipline (or involving their own discipline with others) considered to be the most likely outlets for publication of papers about the involvement of HE in Integrated Children’s Services.

• Where the recommended journals turned out to yield few or no relevant articles, or could not be accessed, Subject Centre leads were asked to nominate further journals, which were also scrutinised.

• Identified journals from some disciplines yielded far less relevant material than others.

Research Review Key Findings

• Learning for integrated children’s services is inadequately conceptualised and theorised;

• Variable findings - researchers agree about the logistical challenges of developing interprofessional learning for integrated children’s services;

• Dearth of robust evidence about outcomes for students; outcomes for children, young people and families are rarely discussed.

Practice Survey in HEIs

Scoping study of HE Practice re ICS: on-line and telephone survey (Sept-Dec 2007) of 36 universities (43 interviewees) in England plus one each in Wales and NI.

There is a wealth of innovative initiatives at all levels, and primarily at foundation and undergraduate levels, in full programmes, individual modules, practice and work-based learning.

Typology of approaches to IPE for ICS-HE

• 6: Four types of integrated children’s services provision in HEIs

1. Interprofessional students and interprofessional staff.

2. Uniprofessional students and interprofessional staff.

3. Uniprofessional students and uniprofessional staff teaching interprofessional issues.

4. Generic non-professional programmes and interprofessional staff.

Network Co-ordination and conference

Prof Judy McKimm, University of Beds:

Commissioned to identify and engage HE bodies, develop networks and plan and coordinate the national conference and dissemination.

National conference, Manchester Nov 2007.

The Integrated Qualifications Framework

“A set of approved qualifications that allows progression, continuing professional development and mobility across the children and young people's workforce”.

IQF qualifications will be underpinned by the Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children’s Workforce and link to the new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), being developed by the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA). IQF inclusion principles were developed with stakeholders. Consultation with HEIs has taken place from autumn 07 to Spring 08.

Enabling factors for ICS-HE

• Enthusiastic students.• Entrepreneurial interest, individual commitment.• Senior HEI leadership.• Strategic cross-faculty appointments. • External partnerships with stakeholders.• Seed funding (e.g. by HEIs or stakeholders).• Seminar programme to promote and disseminate.• Linked to research.• 7 HEI’s ‘whole system change’ most or all of the

above; most opt for incremental change.

Barriers to ICS-HE

• Equivocal research findings from existing IPE & mixed views about ‘transferability’

• Variable interpretations by HEI’s of ‘integrated children’s services’ and implications for HE.

• Disciplinary ‘silos.’• Departmental administrative boundaries.• Lack of suitable space for large groups. • Lack of development time and funding.• Need sustained stakeholder support (business case). • Lack of synergy between accrediting bodies.• Fast changing, complex policy context and fragmented

practice context.

Recommendations (1)

• Government should involve HE as strategic partners in researching, developing and implementing policy & practice for the ICS workforce, nationally & regionally;

• Universities should strengthen their links with SSCs and employers and appoint ICS coordinators;

• Regulatory bodies should explore collaboration, building on initiatives like the Joint Statement of interprofessional values underpinning work with children and young people (GTC, GSCC, NMC);

Recommendations (2)

• Professional bodies should commission initiatives;• Employers, supported by government should

collaborate with universities to develop programmes with a sustainable and robust business case;

• Children, young people and families should be supported to contribute to learning, teaching and assessment;

• Research funders should target funding to ensure a robust evidence-base and to develop the conceptual and theoretical base essential to learning for ICS;

• The Higher Education Academy and Subject Centres should extend the dissemination of the ICS-HE project across disciplines and stakeholder groups, and support educators through information exchanges and briefings.

Recommendations (3)

First small work group: levels

Select a working group to focus on one of the following:• Foundation degrees; • Undergraduate degree modules and/or programmes;• Postgraduate degree modules and/or programmes.

What opportunities are there for development?

What barriers might there be & how might these be overcome?

What examples exist that can be built on?

Second small work group:making change happen

Select a working group to focus on one of the following:• ‘Whole system’ cross-HEI change;• Developing links with stakeholders regionally;• Developing links with stakeholders nationally.

What opportunities are there for development?

What barriers might there be & how might these be overcome?

What examples exist that can be built on?

Conclusion

• Feedback from small groups.• Action points.

FFI go to <http://icshe.escalate.ac.uk/>