Total Place with total collaboration

Max Rashbrooke claims that frontline staff have largely been left out of Total Place, quoting Simon Watson, from the public sector union Unison, who suggests that the programme has been dominated by "a top-down, technocratic approach, not using the skills of the workforce". What a shame they haven't looked at the work done in Croydon. Here, jointly led by NHS Croydon and Croydon council, Total Place has involved colleagues from all levels right across the local strategic partnership, including the police, the local FE college, children's centres, primary healthcare and the voluntary and community sector. Key to Croydon's Total Place programme, which has explored the potential for radical efficiencies through redesigning the early years system, has been deep collaboration, starting with parents and families (those who currently use services and those who don't) and frontline practitioners. "We knew that we had to look afresh at the nature of the problem which needed solving. That meant listening - together - to everyone in the system. We deliberately set out to harness expertise directly from parents, frontline practitioners and managers. It's given us a powerful shared vision of what is needed and what's possible. And there's a tangible commitment to working together to achieve it," said Jessica Brittin, interim director of Strategic Commissioning, NHS Croydon. A variety of innovative events and conversations in Croydon has engaged upwards of 300 people, including head teachers, health visitors, children's centre workers, GPs and family support workers, alongside senior managers and service heads. 'Precipitating change in both thinking and doing' Damian Roberts, director of strategy at Croydon council enthuses: "Our workshops in ThePublicOffice were exciting. For many people it was the first time that they had had a conversation with others from different organisations. It was genuinely inspiring and is precipitating change in both thinking and doing." Of course the engagement that's happened is only a start; Croydon knows that there is a lot more to do. A key proposition coming out of the joint work is the idea of a family partnership team. This would be a geographically focused virtual team, with a devolved budget, involving practitioners from across a wide range of organisations working together with families to deliver quality and timely early intervention support. Croydon's Total Place partners intend to work with practitioners, professional bodies and unions to explore how best to achieve shared performance management and learning & development frameworks to underpin such teams. Longer term they might investigate the benefits of establishing a third party entity to employ staff from different professional backgrounds. The establishment of an Early Years Academy to train practitioners from different backgrounds to share understanding and work in new ways together is another important proposition coming out of the work. Community paediatrician Ian Johnston comments: "multiagency working makes such a big difference to the outcome for a child. It would be great to embed it in our everyday practice in Croydon". What's clear is that the cultural and attitudinal join-up between professionals and across organisations is already well under way in Croydon. And a key catalyst has been Total Place. Ruth Kennedy is Croydon's Total Place Programme lead Croydon's report, Child, family, place: radical efficiency to improve outcomes for young children, can be found here