The development of an auditing tool to support the delivery of inter‐professional training within the field of safeguarding children

Abstract

T he relevance of inter-professional training and the significance of inter-professional relationships are emphasised in serious case reviews and inquiry reports into the deaths of children (Brandon et al., 2008;Lord Laming, 2003, 2009Rose and Barnes, 2008). There are acknowledged challenges in how practitioners from different agencies relate to one another (Reder et al., 1993;Glennie, 2007), and in the process of evaluating the impact of training programmes to promote inter-agency working (Carpenter, 2005). Murphy et al. (2006) identify the difficulty in agreeing standards of education and training within inter-agency work. Additional challenges to effective delivery of inter-agency training include organisational factors, and cultural, professional and contextual issues (Cameron and Lart, 2003). Despite these challenges, there remains a focus on the value and importance of inter-professional training and learning (Charles and Horwath, 2009;Horwath and Morrison, 1999). It is the view of the authors that the delivery of inter-agency training should address a series of objectives:• To explore the process and the value of collaborative working.• To understand the importance of self in the decision-making process.• To challenge mythology and stereotypes.

Perspectives of Neglect

“…Daryl Dugdale and Carol Wells () in the final article of this issue address the subject of interprofessional training in the field of safeguarding children. These authors describe the development of a process and tool in which those responsible for inter‐agency child protection training could be supported to audit and review the conditions in which training programmes were being delivered.…”

“…These authors describe the development of a process and tool in which those responsible for inter‐agency child protection training could be supported to audit and review the conditions in which training programmes were being delivered. The authors describe the three phases of the development of the audit tool, which included: (i) a review of the existing research and literature to identify key standards; (ii) adaptation of an existing model ‘to audit the conditions for delivery of effective inter‐agency training’ (Dugdale and Wells, , p. 143) and measure against existing standards; and (iii) testing of the tool with a number of Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) and an interactive presentation with 70 interprofessional trainers who had an opportunity to try out the tool and provide feedback, which led to further development of the audit tool. The ‘Make a Difference’ tool is the outcome of the project.…”

“…The ‘Make a Difference’ tool is the outcome of the project. The authors report that the review tool is divided into three key areas of provision, participants and practice systems, which provide a framework to ‘demonstrate the training function's strengths and weakness’ (Dugdale and Wells, , p. 148). Dugdale and Wells argue that the review tool's requirement to evidence responses results in a plan that can be owned and actions prioritised by the LSCB.…”