Communication and Collaboration in Managing the Professional Environment

This report discusses the significance of multi-agency working and effective communication in healthcare for children with multiple learning disabilities. It explores ways of working collaboratively and being an effective team member. The report also covers Tuckman's stages of group development and Belbin's team roles. Subject: Healthcare, Course Code: NA, Course Name: NA, College/University: NA

Communication and
Collaboration in Managing
the Professional
Environment

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1
TASK – 1...................................................................................................................................1
Defining the working of multi-agency working.....................................................................1
Exploring ways of working collaboratively and an effective team member when working in
teams.......................................................................................................................................3
Ensuring effective communication by the practitioners when working with children with
multiple learning disabilities..................................................................................................4
TASK – 2...................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Speaking in relation with the communication as well as collaboration skills, they play
a very important role in the firms for making sure enhanced level of performance along with
attainment of sustainable competitive edge in the market. Furthermore, these skills also help
in creating an open plus honest atmosphere at the workplace and also helps the workers to
carry out their task effectively which in turn helps in attaining the pre-determined targets of
the organization. Considering this, the main aim of the current research report is to
comprehend the manners in which the multi-agency working contributes to the well-being of
the service user and care staff. The service users being chosen for the current research
purpose is children with multiple learning disabilities. The report will discuss the significance
of working in collaboration and will reflect on the role and accountabilities of the health and
social care workers in making sure effective communication and collaborative practice.
TASK – 1
Defining the working of multi-agency working
Speaking in volume in relation with the multi-agency partnership or working, it is
being referred as the situation wherein practitioners from more than one agency work in
collaboration with each other, share their aims, data, activities and accountabilities for the
purpose of intervening early for preventing issues being arising that might influence the
learning as well as achievement of the children. Further, multiagency working comprises
joint planning as well as distribution of co-ordinated services which are responsive to the
altering requirements of the services user that is children with multiple learning disabilities.
In other words, it is all about working co jointly and ensuring that people involved in these
agencies are regularly conversing in regards with their work, comprehending the roles of each
other along with sharing ideas with other agencies as well. Multi-agency can work across
private, public and voluntary sectors (Abbott, Townsley and Watson, 2017). A perfect
example of multi-agency working is when partners such as professionals, doctors, specialists
along with family members, parents, friends and team members works together.
The increased emphasis on the quality of life has emphasized the requirement for
professional agencies to work co-jointly, if the children with different complex and learning
disabilities are required to have better lives. additionally, according to Fox and Butler (2016),
it has been found that multi-agency working is progressively being considered as an
important medium for allowing enhanced accessibility to specialist help as well as resources,
easing inclusion and leading to increased attainment. Further, it has also been suggested by
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Watson, Townsley and Abbot (2018), that multi-agency working helps in allowing the
children with critical learning needs in reaching their highest potential. He further stated that
irrespective of the complexities being found in their disabilities in schools or homes, care
givers have found out that when different professionals work closely with each other,
children reach their educational potential more easily.
There are different aspects of multi-agency working that is they work together, offer
person centred care and support, consultation, decide together and act together. All these
aspects can better help in addressing and identifying effective intervention for solving the
issues being faced by the children in education. The person-centred care and support have a
huge impact on the quality of care and well-being of the service user. This is because of the
fact that in person-centred care, each and every service user have full control over their care
decisions and also offers flexibility for meeting their needs on a one-to-one basis. In addition
to this, multi-agency works in collaboration with each other which signifies that knowledge,
experience and understanding of each and every professional is being used for planning an
intervention for addressing the complex issues being faced by the children with learning
disabilities (Driscoll and et.al., 2020).
Moving further, the multi-agency working is also beneficial to the well-being of
healthcare staff. It has been found out from the studies being conducted by (), that the
healthcare staff and workers giving care to the children with learning disabilities can have
many advantages. First of all, they can have professional well-being when working with
multi-agencies. Working with the professionals being involved in the multi-agency working
helps in development of new working approaches, creativity, autonomy and experiences
which in turn helps in satisfying their self-concept. According to Carl Rogers, self-concept is
being defined as personal knowledge about oneself including all the feelings, emotions and
thoughts. There are mainly three important elements of self-concept that is self-esteem, self-
image and ideal self. When health acre staff or workers works in collaboration with the
practitioners than they acquire different knowledge which motivates them and they evaluate
themselves as a better human being which in turn enhances the quality of care being offered
to the children with certain educational issues (Rogers, 1959). Other than this, it also helps in
improving the working practices such as enhancement in the communication, greater
prospects for information sharing, ideas for resolving certain issues with children and
increased accessibility of other agencies. Furthermore, one of the greatest benefits that the
healthcare staff can avail from this co joint work is effective service and joint problem
solving. There are many issues which might came across while addressing the complex
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problem being faced by children with learning disabilities such as determining acute and
chronic illness and facilitating relevant referral, care and treatment. With this holistic
approach and trust between the professionals, healthcare can get solutions to these issues.
Exploring ways of working collaboratively and an effective team member when working in
teams
Collaborative practice and working in health care takes place when multiple workers
from varied professional backgrounds offer all-inclusive services through working with the
patients, friends and families in order to render the highest quality of care throughout the
settings. In addition to this, collaborative practices encompass different health care providers
and practitioners applying their creative skills as well as knowledge to the management of
children with multiple learning disabilities (Koch, 2017). Collaboration takes place when
each and every individual that is the multi-agency, health care providers, professionals,
friends and family members have mutual respect for one another and one another’s
professions as well. even, they are also willing to share in a cooperative atmosphere. For the
health care staff offering care and support to the students with multiple learning disabilities,
collaboration with muti-agency and professionals might prove very advantageous. Firstly,
collaboration is useful for them for offering a great support and positive reinforcement.
secondly, it involves a group of different people, professionals and practitioners who share
their ideas along with the skills and abilities for attaining a shared objective which in turn
helps in improving the productivity of the healthcare staff along with the quality of care being
offered to the children. In addition to this, with the collaboration, they also find it easy to
brainstorm the ideas, skills, intervention, treatment and care required for solving or
improving the existing issue on time (Nagarajan, Kalinka and Hogan, 2018). Thirdly, people
with varied idea thoughts and viewpoints can work together for finding innovative solutions
which in turn enables the healthcare workers to solve the issue in a faster as well as efficient
manner.
When working with the chosen service user that is the children with multiple learning
disabilities, it is important on the part of the team members to consider different factors to
work in collaboration with each other. according to the Tuckman’s stages of group
development, there are commonly five important stages which helps in describing the
manners in which the team works and moves forward through the stages of forming,
storming, norming, performing and adjourning (McLeskey and et.al., 2017). For effective
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functioning and offering quality of care to the children, it is important that the healthcare staff
should consider these stages of development:
 Forming – This is the stage, where the team members of health care and medical staff
meets and get to know each other through sharing and understanding their
backgrounds. The team of health care is being set up for offering and sharing
information in regards with improvement of health and issues being faced by children
with multiple learning disabilities.
 Storming – At the second stage, the organization of task along with processes initiates
and team members including, medical staff, practitioners, friends and family members
work together and stand up to different challenges for attaining their desired goal.
Nevertheless, due to conflicts, there are some teams that might not go beyond this
stage.
 Norming – This is the stage where the team members begin to start making use of new
ways for doing work and being together (Gren, Torkar and Feldt, 2017). They are no
longer being emphasized on working on the individual goals rather are concerned
about the team objectives.
 Performing – At this level, the team members are working efficiently and have
empathy for one another. This is being regarded as the highly productive stage.
 Adjourning – This is the last stage, where the team members are ready to leave which
result into important change in the structure of the team, purpose and membership.
Further, there are different qualities being needed of an effective team member in a
team of health care working with children with multiple learning disabilities. This can be
very well explained with the Belbin’s team roles. There are different roles being defined by
Belbin such as resource allocator, monitor evaluator, team worker, shaper, coordinator,
implementer, plant, specialists and completer finisher. All these qualities and roles are
required to be possessed by the team members of health care for children with learning
disabilities in order to offer them good quality of care (Boone, Roelants and
Hoppenbrouwers, 2021).
Ensuring effective communication by the practitioners when working with children with
multiple learning disabilities
Speaking in relation with the effective communication in health and social care of the
children suffering from multiple and complex learning disabilities has to be two-way process
amid the service users and the multi-agency team. It is crucial that emphasis should be laid on
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both verbal as well as non-verbal communication when referring to the chosen service user
group. Learning disabilities are often linked with the verbal skills such as reading and
writing. In such a scenario, it is important that non-verbal communication should be used for
enhancing the learning experience of the children (Skarbalienė, Skarbalius and Gedrimė,
2019). It is also important that the health care workers should not use long words and jargon
that might be hard to comprehend. For children having multiple learning disabilities, effective
communication plays a very crucial role. This is due to the fact that most of time rely on the
support of other for living their lives and thus, it becomes necessary that the care givers,
family members and health care staff are able to communicate effectively with those children.
Further, effective communication can also directly influence the success of the children.
There are different potential barriers which might influence the effective
communication amid the care giver and children with learning difficulties such as inabilities
to listen to others, different style of communication, lack of interest, cultural and language
differences, lack of trust and transparency and conflicts in the workplace. However, these
barriers can be overcome by taking into consideration the Argyle’s communication cycle.
This theory has defined 6 stages that is the occurrence of the idea, message coded, message
sent, message received, message decoded and message understood. This should be considered
by the health care staff while communicating and supporting the children with learning
disabilities. However, this communication cycle is quite applicable when it involves one to
one communication and not a group conversation (Argyle, 2017). The first stage of this cycle
is the occurrence of idea to speak to the person in regards with a specific topic. The second
stage involves coding that is deciding the manner in which the message should be
communicate. The third stages include message sent wherein the message has been said to a
particular person. The fourth one is receiving of the message in which the other person gas
listened the message sent towards them. Further, the next stages involve message decoded in
which the receiver of the message perceives and understand the message being sent through
the tone, body language, gestures and postures. The sixth stage is message understood where
the receiver understands the full message, translated and processed the manner in which the
sender wants to communicate.
Moving further, there are different barriers of communication as discussed above
being faced by the health care practitioners while giving care and support to children with
learning disabilities. However, it is important that the practitioner should build their
communication capacity for responding, detecting and preparing to illness and any sort of
disease threats being faced by their patients. In addition to this, there is also a need of
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advocacy as it is all about impacting as well as driving change. This can be done by
consistent, effective as well as focused communication. There must be structured planning,
well-defined goals and articulated messages as per the target audience for effective
communication to take place (Foronda, MacWilliams and McArthur, 2016). With advocacy
and capacity, the healthcare practitioner will be able to create person centred care plans.
Practitioners has an important role in making use of good communication skills for
collaborating with the service user, care givers and family members. It is important on the
part of the health care practitioners that they should make use of clear, timely as well as
discrete communication. Further, it is also important that the communication is quite essential
for diagnosing the patient accurately and for ensuring effective and suitable treatments. The
importance of good communication skills is quite evidenced from the case of Victoria
Climbié who died in the ICU of St Mary’s Hospital Paddington. The main cause of her death
was mainly failure of communication amid varied workers and agencies, failure in failing
established rules and procedures and inadequate resources for meeting the demand (Ratna,
2019). Thus, these aspects need to be considered by the healthcare practitioner for having
effective communication.
TASK – 2
For writing this reflection practice, Gibb’s reflective cycle is being used. It is being
referred as an important model of reflection that involves six important stages that
description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. Gibbs reflective cycle
helps people in learning from the situation by determining the strength and aeras of
improvement. Reflective account is being created in the subsequent paragraph:
It was noticed by me at my workplace that two of my colleagues are not paying
attention to the communication protocol and systems being established by our hospital and
neglecting the same. there is a system in our hospital that prior giving any treatments, it is
important that the healthcare staff should communicate and discuss treatments and
intervention with the head of department. However, they were not doing this and directly
offering treatments and medicine without collaborating with others (Thompson and Pascal,
2018). I kept on noticing their behaviour but have observed that they followed the same
routine in each and every case which I think should be reported as it is not good for the health
of the children. So, I complained about them to the in-charge of the department about this
misconduct taking place in the hospital. The in-charge called them and asked for the reason
behind this misconduct.
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At that time, I was not feeling good as a health care worker because my first priority
as a care giver is health and well-being of the patient and service user. Additionally, I was
also shocked that they both are my good friends and colleagues and they are disregarding the
rules and routine of the hospital. Due to their breaking and negligence of rules, there might be
dramatic outcomes on the health of the services at the hospital. I felt quite disappointed at
that point of time.
This incident has allowed me to have both positive as well as negative experience. It
was positive in the sense that I noticed this misconduct and reported the same and saves the
lives of many service users could be in danger due to wrong treatment and lack of skill of
individual health care worker. With my step, wrong behaviour in the hospital can be stooped.
On the other side, I was not happy as two of the colleagues to whom I complained to in-
charge was also my good friends and colleagues and was feeling that my decision was not
favourable for them as I have pointed out their unwanted behaviour to the top management.
However, I feel that I am not wrong on my part.
Different lessons have been learnt by me through this incident. First of all, I learnt the
importance of good communication and collaboration within health care practioners, service
users, professionals and family members. Secondly, I also understood the significance of
considering the rules, code of conduct, procedure and legislations. Thirdly, I have also
realized that it is also important to have good relationship and communication with each and
every one at our workplace so that one can guide and help each other when faced with any
issue.
Therefore, from the above incident it can be concluded that as a health care
practitioner it is very crucial to take into account all the protocols, rules and legislations along
with the code of practice for reflecting improved care to the patient (Blair and Deacon, 2015).
It is also important to have awareness of moral, ethical as well as safe practice which does not
have impact the health and well-being of the workers.
In future, if such kind of a situation takes place than it is important than it is important
on my part to aware the top management of this misconduct as soon as possible. Further, I
should also warn them prior reporting their behaviour and help them to follow rules and
effective communication process.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the report has significantly
evaluated the role of multi-agency working and the manners in which the working of these
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agencies will be beneficial for the service user that is the children with multiple learning
disabilities. The report has also emphasized on importance of working in an effective team
and have found out that it is very crucial to work in collaboration with each other and
communicate effectively in the professional environment because it helps in improving the
quality of care to be rendered to the service user.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Abbott, D., Townsley, R. and Watson, D., 2017. Multi-agency working in services for
disabled children: what impact does it have on professionals?’ Health and Social
Care in the Community.13(2). pp.155–163.
Argyle, M., 2017. Social Interaction: Process and Products. 2nded. Routledge.
Blair, E. and Deacon, A., 2015. A holistic approach to fieldwork through balanced reflective
practice. Reflective Practice. 16(3). pp.418-434.
Boone, A., Roelants, M. and Hoppenbrouwers, K., 2021. Perceived team roles of medical
students: a five-year cross-sectional study. BMC Med Education. 22. p.198.
Driscoll, J., Lorek, A., Kinnear, E. and Hutchinson, A., 2020. Multi-agency safeguarding
arrangements: overcoming the challenges of Covid-19 measures. Journal of
Children's Services. 15(4). pp.267-274.
Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B. and McArthur, E., 2016. Interprofessional communication in
healthcare: An integrative review. Nurse Education in Practice. 19. pp.36-40.
Fox, C. and Butler, G., 2016. Partnerships: where next? Community Safety Journal. 3(3).
pp.36–44.
Gren, L., Torkar, R. and Feldt, R., 2017. Group development and group maturity when
building agile teams: A qualitative and quantitative investigation at eight large
companies. Journal of Systems and Software. 124. pp.104-119.
Koch, K., 2017. IEP: Students benefit when we collaborate. Edutopia.
McLeskey, J., Barringer, M.D., Billingsley, B., Brownell, M., 2017. High-leverage practices
in special education. Arlington, VA: Council for Exceptional Children & CEEDAR
Center.
Nagarajan, R, Kalinka, A.T. and Hogan, W.R., 2018. Evidence of community structure in
biomedical research grant collaborations. Journal of Biomed Information. 46(1).
pp.40–46.
Ratna, H., 2019. The Importance of Effective Communication in Healthcare Practice.
Harvard Public Health Review. 23. pp.1–6.
Rogers, C.R., 1959. A Theory of Therapy, Personality, and Interpersonal Relationships as
Developed in The Client-Centred Framework. Psychology: A Story of a Science.
3.pp.184-256.
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Skarbalienė, A., Skarbalius, E. and Gedrimė, L., 2019. Effective communication in the
healthcare settings: Are the graduates ready for it? Management. 24. pp.137-147.
Thompson, N. and Pascal, J., 2018. Developing critically reflective practice. Reflective
Practice. 13(2). pp.311-325.
Watson, D., Townsley, R. and Abbot, D., 2018. Exploring multi-agency working in services
to disabled children with complex healthcare needs and their families. Journal of
Clinical Nursing. 11(3). pp.367–375.
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