A Critical Report: Impact of Multiagency Working on Child Safeguarding

This report provides a critical analysis of the impact of multiagency working on safeguarding children. It begins with an introduction to the topic and an overview of the report's structure. Chapter 2 offers a critical review of the literature, examining the effectiveness of multiagency approaches, challenges faced by social workers, and relevant legislation, including the Laming Report and the Children Act. The analysis explores partnership and integration, information sharing, and the role of multiagency safeguarding hubs. Chapter 3 discusses the implications for social work practice, drawing on research to propose best practices, such as shared databases, to improve support for children and families. The report emphasizes the importance of early intervention, effective collaboration, and the need for professionals to work together. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and recommendations, highlighting the importance of multiagency collaboration in protecting vulnerable children. The report adheres to Harvard referencing style.

Impact of Multiagency working on
safeguarding children

Table of Contents
Chapter 2: Critical Analysis and Literature Review........................................................................1
Multi-agency working..................................................................................................................1
Effectiveness of multi-agency working for safeguarding of children.........................................2
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

Chapter 2: Critical Analysis and Literature Review
Multi-agency working
As per the view of Cleaver and et.al., (2019) safeguarding the children requires multi-
agency responses and it cannot be done by the local authorities alone. Therefore, multi-agency
working is where the professionals from different sector work mutually with sharing objectives,
also share the data as well as responsibilities in order to intervene early to prevent the problems
from which the children are suffering. On the other side, it is critically evaluated by Dunne and
Finalay, (2016). that multi-agency working is consist of two key concept such that partnership
and integration. So, in order to reduce the risk among children, cooperation between the
agencies is quite important and as a result, it leads to stop domestic abuse at the early stage. For
instance, in UK there are many incident related to domestic abuse victims in a family courts and
in order to resolve these issues, the specialist team should be take an active role in order to
establish the strong multi-agency so that they will take actions and also provide responses to
improve the domestic abuse and safeguarding the children as well.
In addition to this, it is stated by Solomon, (2019) that the Criminal Justice Act, 2003
requires the police, probation as well as prison service to work jointly and they are consider the
responsible authority for each area of England and Wales. Therefore, these multi-agency
safeguarding hubs are arranged in which the services are co- located in order to improve the
information sharing and also respond the safeguarding issues in more effective way. Therefore,
these multi-agency always did not focused on the needs of children but sometimes, it also solve
issues related to adults also. On contrary, Winstone, (2019) critic that the government of United
Kingdom made Multi- Agency Safeguarding Hub that brings all the key professionals together in
order to facilitate early and also provide better quality of information and make decisions in
order to safeguard the vulnerable children as well as young people.
The Multi-agency working also provide timely access to a range of partner agency
information that further builds the picture and also enable to understand different types of risk as
well. The working of multi-agency is on the track such that the professionals collect the
information from different agency and then it further collated within Multi-agency safeguarding
hub and then they decide to take action accordingly. According to Wilkinson, Cohen‐Hatton and
Honey, (2019) , government first understand the local need and then use the same information in
order to protect the child and it also include the multi- agency audit as well. For instance, in
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Camden there is a board notice with clear correlation between two self- harm and parents who
are suffer from mental health problems. Therefore, this led to multi-agency audit and thus, it
become a priority work area for the multi-agency. It shows that it is not about what is happening
in the front-line but to respond same in the mean time is the work of multi-agency. This, clearly
reflect that with the support of multi-agency working, it ensure that the children and young
people who actually needed additional support are come from the right professionals.
Effectiveness of multi-agency working for safeguarding of children
According to Joseph and et.al.,(2019) in UK, the government made different laws that are
related to children safeguarding and side by side, it also hire some multi-agency that provide
solutions related to different issues of children. Such that working with multi-agency will
eliminate the contradiction and tension between the policies as well as programs that will result
in more effective way and as a result, it may lead to generate the mutual trust and also increase
the understanding that will lead to take risk and enhanced potential for an innovation in order to
improve the results as well. In order to working with multi-agency there are different factors that
influence the entire working such that working relationship, multi- agency process, resources for
multi-agency work, management as well as governance.
On the other side, Tyson and Hall, (2019) critic that lack of commitment also identified
as a challenge for the multi-agency working and the social workers working in this agencies also
faces issues related to trust and as a result, it may lead to failing the needs. On the other side,
multi-agency working provide benefits for the children and young people as well as families
because the multi-agency early identifies and it is more easy to access for experts in order to
improve the current situation. Shorrock McManus and Kirby
(2019) stated that the multi-agency is the concept where professionals are come from different
sectors but the biggest challenge they face such that they face language issues and as a result, the
effectiveness of multi- agency declining. Further, there is another problem such that cross-
authority working where the health authority as well as local authority is different. Therefore, as
a result, they did not take proper action in order to minimize the issues related to children.
As per the view of Broad and Turnbull, (2019) it is critically evaluated that the
effectiveness of Multi-agency is measured with the decrease rate of children issues and if there is
clarity of purpose with connection of other agencies also helps to establish the link between each
other. Even the government also promoted the integrated and coordinated working with different
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professionals so that the children safeguarding is promoted. Even there are some major acts and
policies are included such that Social Service Act, 1970 under which the council's of social work
and different care provision are included. Moreover, there are many laws or polices are made
which give the right to protect child from exploitation and abuse and therefore, the multi-agency
also deemed and encourage government to made different laws in order to protect the children
from abuse etc. Therefore, it is realized that with the multi-agency support, the government
identified different problems of children and with the help of professionals, they take immediate
action in order to overcome the problem and provide safeguarding to children as well.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Broad, R. and Turnbull, N., 2019. From Human Trafficking to Modern Slavery: The
Development of Anti-Trafficking Policy in the UK. European Journal on Criminal Policy
and Research.25(2). pp.119-133.
Cleaver, K. and et.al., 2019. A review of UK based multi-agency approaches to early
intervention in domestic abuse: Lessons to be learnt from existing evaluation
studies. Aggression and violent behavior.
Dunne, J. F. and Finalay, F., 2016. G625 Multi-agency safeguarding hub–a new way of working.
Joseph, S. and et.al.,2019. Inter-agency adult support and protection practice. Journal of
Integrated Care.
Shorrock, S., McManus, M. A. and Kirby, S., 2019. Investigating the Characteristics of
Vulnerable Referrals Made to a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub. Policing: A Journal of
Policy and Practice.13(2). pp.201-212.
Solomon, M., 2019. Becoming comfortable with chaos: making collaborative multi-agency
working work. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, pp.1-14.
Tyson, J. and Hall, N., 2019. Hate crime, policing and multi-agency partnership working.
In Multi-Agency Working in Criminal Justice: Theory, Policy and Practice (p. 139). Policy
Press.
Wilkinson, B., Cohen‐Hatton, S. R. and Honey, R. C., 2019. Decision‐making in multi‐agency
groups at simulated major incident emergencies: In situ analysis of adherence to UK
doctrine. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.
Winstone, J., 2019. Offenders with mental health needs in the criminal justice system: the multi-
agency challenge to provide solution-focused responses. Multi-Agency Working in
Criminal Justice: Theory, Policy and Practice, p.237.
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