Important points to remember in interagency working

■ It is usually through staff members, such as the SENCO, that external agency involvement is initiated.

■ Never promise a pupil anything that you cannot guarantee will happen. It is vital to maintain trust and honesty at all times.

■ If a child protection issue is disclosed to you as an individual, always make sure that the pupil knows you will have to share this information with the Child Protection Coordinator who may need to take further action.

■ When reassuring pupils in certain situations that confidentiality will be upheld at all times, IT IS VITAL that the adult always follows this up with the proviso that they will not be able to comply with this if a child protection issue is mentioned. This could occur in a Circle of Friends or Circle Time session, for example, and if the proviso has not initially been mentioned, issues of trust and honesty are immediately put in jeopardy.

■ When a possible child protection issue is mentioned, do support the pupil by making sure the necessary people are informed, but DO NOT question the pupil about the specific issue. This could have negative implications for any follow-up course of action by social services.

■ Involve the pupil throughout the process.

Discussion

Can you name all the people in your educational setting who fulfil the following roles?

■ SENCO;

■ designated Child Protection Coordinator;

■ designated Teacher for Looked After Children;

■ the Inclusion Manager;

■ others e.g. the Family Liaison Officer (FLO) or the Childrens Liaison Officer (CLO).

Do you know the situations when you would seek their support and expertise? Make sure that you have all the information about these roles particularly for use within your educational setting.

Whole-school involvement is the next level of the approach and at this stage support may be sought from LEA support services and other educational departments. It is at this point that an evaluation of practice and intervention already implemented is a valuable exercise. This might include making sure that:

■ Individual Education Plan (IEP) targets and reviews have been carried out;

■ enough time for interventions to take effect has been given;

■ the pupil has been fully involved throughout the process;

■ the parents have been fully involved throughout the process;

■ all expertise in the school has been fully utilized.

Following this evaluation process it may be considered that inter-agency expertise is necessary and indeed might begin to include whole community issues.

Discussion

What do you think schools should consider prior to making a referral to an external agency? The most important factor is, in this writers opinion, that there is a clear idea of what the school hopes to achieve for the pupil from involving external agencies. This also implies that the school, all educators, parents, pupil and all other professionals are very willing to work in a partnership to really implement the term inter agency working.