Piloting the Action Pack (May 2008)

The Action Pack Working Together on the Front Line: How to make multiprofessional teams and partnerships work was published and distributed to all Link Officers at the end of January 2008. The materials consist of a hard-copy handbook, video CD, tools and web-based resources. In line with other research in practice Change Projects, we will pilot the materials, starting in April 2008, with Partner agencies in order to collect feedback about how the materials can be improved before final publication as a Handbook in June 2009.

The Action Pack was made available to all 100 English Partner agencies in the research in practice network with an invitation to use them freely during the pilot period. The materials were personally introduced to Link Officers at their annual Regional Meeting in March 2008.However, a more focused ‘road-testing’ process needs to happen in parallel with this to make sure the Action Pack is thoroughly examined by staff representative of the target audience. A group of frontline staff working in partnerships or multiprofessional teams have therefore been brought together as a pilot group.

Click here to see the Action Pack

Aims of the pilot group

The specific objectives of the pilot group are to:

• Introduce the Action Pack to the group and help participants to decide how they can best use the materials to be more effective as multi-professional teams.
• Support participants to apply the theory and try-out the tools in the context of their partnerships and to share their progress and learning with the group.
• Collect practical examples of how participants have used the materials, and copies of any products generated as a result
• Collate feedback about the relevance and value of the materials, and ideas about how to improve their format, structure or lay-out.
• Use participants’ partnership experiences to identify what is missing from the Action Pack and support the group to generate new materials to address these deficiencies.

Who?

Stockport, Essex, Slough, Plymouth, Merton, Telford & Wrekin and Surrey are all taking part in the pilot group to road test the Working Together on the Front Line Action Pack. A diverse range of multiprofessional teams are represented, including some locality teams and Teams Around the School, Child and the Community (TASCC), as well as a children and young people’s disability partnership.

How?

As in the first Change Project group we encouraged multi-agency participation (practitioners and managers) for this project and recruited three participants from those agencies who are working as a multi-professional team.

Meeting dates for the pilot (2008):

May 29: London

July 10: Bristol

September 25: Birmingham

December 4: London

The group is being facilitated through the following process in order to:

• clarify the purpose of the pilot and introduce group members, their roles and reason for inclusion in the pilot
• try-out of some of the Action Pack theory, tools, exercises and advice
• provide structured feedback on the materials and how they can best be used
• share personal reflections and learning about front line partnership working and practical examples of new materials generated
• debate and agree any key partnership challenges, critical success factors or difficulties covered inadequately in the Action Pack
• support group members to do some development work to plug gaps or deficiencies
• agree the overall revisions needed to the Action Pack’s content or format.

Facilitators

Liz Garret, National Programme Manager, Children's Workforce Development Council and

Sal Lodge, Development Officer, research in practice

What then?

The results of the pilot will be analysed and proposals for revision of materials agreed. Following the piloting and evaluation, the finalised materials will be produced. From previous experience these are likely to build on the pilot materials but be significantly different from them – reflecting the value of careful piloting and evaluation. They are likely to include use of print, video, CD and web-based products.

The Handbook will be launched at the annual Directors’ Forum in June 2009.