Latest information
Click on the links below to find information and update reports on all 13 Locality Integrated Pathfinders and on the disability Pathfinder:
Service Integration
The purpose of this pathfinder is to develop a series of locality based projects which will focus on developing seamless services for children, young people and their families, offered locally, based on the articulated needs of service users.
Some Defining Features of Integration
When exploring the notion of integration it will be useful to note that there are some defining features which prevail:
- A shared philosophy, vision and agreed principles of working with children and families.
- A perception by users of cohesive, comprehensive services.
- A perception by staff teams of a shared identity, purpose and common working practices.
- A commitment by partner providers of services to fund and facilitate integrated services.
- Children, young people and families will be able to receive an integrated service in their locality.
- Families should have clear and ready access to these services, more than just signposting and information about agencies.
- Where services are delivered from more than one location, they reflect an integrated approach to the planning of activities and a shared management ethos.
- Management arrangements are sufficiently robust to support, lead and maintain integration.
The Scope of the Pathfinder
The scope of the locality based projects will address the developmental and critical transition points in the lives of children and young people.
Phases | Critical Transition Points |
Pre-birth to 5 | (3) |
5 - 16 (5 - 11 & 11 - 16) | 5, 11, 16 |
14 - 19 | 16 |
19 - 24 | 19 |
At a local level this will require, at the very least:
- A mapping of services across localities.
- Identifying who 'owns' the services.
- Testing reality against rhetoric in terms of service delivery.
- Growing the culture of 'skills share' to ensure earlier intervention and obviate the need for later crisis response and consequent delays within specialisms.
- Defining universal but not uniform services (services for all, but not the same service), first within the context of the current service paradigm, with a view to realigning the paradigm and where services fit within it.
Integration will be a process and not an event. Locality projects will need to achieve co-ordination en route to integration. However, the enduring features must be around seamless access across universal, targeted and specialist services.
There is likely to be a 'mixed economy' of integration combined with co-ordination.
The project will need to define some criteria, which aid an understanding of the difference, and at the same time the complementarity between co-ordination and integration and the dynamics of this within the paradigm.
There is a need to define access in terms of assessment of need and the provision of the services (package of services) to meet identified need.
The Pathfinder Management Group
A project management group will manage and support the overall progress of the pathfinder. The chair of the group will be Frank Firth and membership of the group will be drawn initially from the local Children and Young People's Planning Groups (ensuring a balance of representation from Health and District Councils), representative head teachers from Nursery, Primary, Secondary and Special schools, the lead officer for Extended Schools, the lead officer for Sure Start County Durham, the lead officer for SEN and Communities of Learning, the lead officer for Children in Need, the Local Preventative Strategy and the Common Assessment Framework, and a nominated officer for Safeguarding Children.
Read the Pathfinders Progress Report.
