Research Information Systems & Knowledge: The life of a DCS in 2008

1. ResearchInformationSystems &Knowledge:The life of a DCS in 2008 Dr Maggie Atkinson Vice President ADCS and DCS for Gateshead

3. A bounded universe, or infinity? What DCSs do • Every Child Matters 2003, Children Act 2004 • National Children’s Plan 2007 • Statutory Guidance: Directors and Lead Members • Act applies to: • Every English top tier LA with responsibility for • Education • Children’s Social Care

4. Health (Primary & Secondary Care) are in • Early Years to 19, to 25 in care or with disabilities • Youth services (prevention, intervention) • 14-19 strategy & delivery, • School planning & commissioning, • Service integration, • Governance & accountability (children’s trust arrangements) • Second tier LAs: Leisure, Housing, etc

6. Neighbourhood Services?

7. Maybe:Gateshead children and young people’s services by 2010-2011 Area board/mini partnership: writes compacts/area plans contributing to the whole-borough picture of what is planned and intended for children and young people. Commissioning function backed by strong, differentiated data/knowledge, from all sources. Every school in the area: all extended schools, relate to core service offer Joint pledge: no child falls, fails, languishes or is passed on Borough-wide services, “play into” areas. Most specialist high level intervention for children and young people Same joint pledge Therapists Nursing Services & Midwives, Health development Children’s Centres, Early Years Youth and Community learning Integrated youth support Prevention & early intervention (young offenders) SEN services Social Care (C&F) prevention & support Education Welfare, Education Psychology Tiers 1, 2, early 3, CAMHS Area management arrangements, multi-service and multi-agency Area focused element of Heads of Service work, and links to Area Forums DCS, Lead Member, Cabinet, Council, Partnership

8. Some Joys and Frustrations: SHORT Version! • JOYS: • On the ground: “street level bureaucrats” doingchange, shape local policy, bottom up • Osmosis: managers & leaders follow, “middle-up-and-outwards” • Workers: find things that unite and don’t divide them: teams around child/young person/family • Preciousness falls away in favour of “getting on with it” • Safeguarding is everybody’s business …… and …… • Joy of joys …… • So is every other outcome • If you’re on my bus, you bought your ticket! • Children, young people, families, communities benefit

9. Frustrations Next! Local First……. • Time lags in understanding: • “Duty to cooperate” means what it says • “Publish, then pool, your funding” ditto • “Co-author your plans” too! • “Co-locate in teams round the child” affects us all • Schools are neither monsters, nor independent states. They are partners. You can’t “just tell them!”

10. Uncommon language, uncommon practice:What does COMMISSIONING mean?And PARTNERSHIP?Is CONFIDENTIAL the same as SECRET?Do I HELP and EMPOWER you when I intervene? Or exercise my professional power? Does what I do improve your life chances?How do you know?Who decides?

11. And National (Government First) • Frenetic, relentless, top-down, sometimes “one-size-fits-all” change: it’s become endemic • Poor ties between research & policymaking, despite policies’ impacts on practice and vice versa • Conflicting targets and plans: • Health, differs from • Policing, differs from • Justice, differs from • Schooling, differs from • Local Government, differs from • …… You get the picture………

12. Talking to the crew(s) of the Marie Celeste(s) • Talking to the mutineers from the Bounty • Field forces and regulators: • Finding jobs for the boys and girls? • Or helping us find the best practice that will challenge the worst? • Ensuring we have some standards to live by? • Generating premature, unproven orthodoxies? • Communicating with each other to avoid duplication and confusion?

13. Other: non-Governmental,academic,interdisciplinary • Headline: PRECIOUSNESS, summed up as follows • “Can never get a social worker” (Head) • “Schools just don’t care” (Social Worker) • “When they come they don’t help” (Head) • “When we go they don’t meet thresholds” (Social Worker) • “Not our business” (Every profession) • “Go ahead, integrate your services. Training and research stand by the unified nature of x” (where x is either teaching, or social work!)

14. “We’ve never done it that way” (most places, most teams) • “We’ve always done it that way” (ditto) • “Ah yes, but it won’t work here.” (ditto) • “What do you expect? Look where they come from” • “Going too fast, this change, Maggie.” • “Going too slowly, this change, Maggie.”

15. DCSs would share with you: • KNOWLEDGE and our use of itis a thing that sets us apart as humans • Toilers in the field must act on what we know …… • Even when it’s uncomfortable • SYSTEMS we use to help us must: • Interlock to serve each other, AND • Enhance proven, demonstrable outcomes of practice

16. INFORMATION provides power to make things better • It is not there to safeguard status quo, or • To defend territory you can’t enter, but I can • RISK of things going wrong? It is often less than likelihood that it will! • The change we lead is real, and lasting. • We can be disempowered, or • We can carry on getting on with it

21. As the eternal optimist DCS I believe: • We are on the right journey here in “Service Land” • Integration is the way forward, even if it’s hard • Maggie the ethnographer considers that • Practice in real places must inform, …… and …… • the evidence derived from it must drive, • Both academic research, and policymaking • Dialogues like yours are vital. So………

22. Here are five hard questions to contribute to it: • What IS “Social Services” please, in 2008? • How does research activity tangibly influence policy and inform its debates? • Where is the voice of your community of research and practice heard? • Where is it acted on? • How do you know? • How will you change your focus, as practice in the field goes on changing?