The Programme
Getting it right for every child is a national programme that is changing the way adults think and act to help children reach their full potential. The programme aims to improve outcomes for children and young people; getting them the help they need, when they need it; listen to them and their families, keep them involved and at the centre at all times; and ensure that all services work together effectively towards fully integrated solutions. This will impact upon culture, systems and practice for all services involved with working with children, young people, parents and carers in Scotland.
A need for Collaborative Working
The scope of the Getting it right approach means that extensive and ongoing collaboration is required with and between practitioners, across all local areas, spanning a wide range of sectors - including a broad selection of policy makers across the Scottish Government. Partnership and close cooperation is required to ensure the approach remains effective and workable for everyone dealing with children and their families, and to ensure its smooth and effective implementation in all areas.
Supporting Collaborative Implementation
National implementation takes time: with the various organisations, agencies and local areas working within their own constraints, progressing according to their own road maps and at their own rates. During the earlier stages of the programme, practitioners voiced a number of needs relating to their roles designing, developing and preparing for local implementation of a Getting it right approach.
These needs included:
- to be better networked with each other
- to be better networked with Scottish Government & Pathfinder teams
- to gain earlier sight of lessons emerging from pathfinding
- to be able to see materials, drafts & plans under development in other areas
- to feel supported in sharing problems & solutions with peers in other areas
It is hoped that a Learning Community, facilitated by the Scottish Government, will help address these needs by providing the means to join people together and a forum for sharing and finding solutions.
A Community that shares as it learns and learns as it shares
By linking pivotal professionals and partners who have key roles to play in the implementation of Getting it right, it is hoped that the shared learning will benefit local developers in a helpful and timely way. In order for this to happen effectively, Learning Community members and Champions will have to be committed to a two-way exchange:
- contributing positively, openly and actively - sharing materials (completed or in draft), experiences and challenges with the community in the spirit of collaboration and shared learning
- disseminating learning that they have gained from the Community, as appropriate (and according to any courtesy protocols established), across their own peers and other groups and Networks that they are involved with
Fellow Members
The Getting it right Learning Community will need to comprise of a representative group of practitioners and policy makers as well as members of the Getting it right team itself. Those who have a pivotal role to play, and those who are in a position to represent and report to peers in their area are invited to participate. All will be encouraged to work together proactively as a joint force, sharing up-to-date tools, materials, plans and knowledge of local practice in order to help each other develop better solutions for children & young people, and to remain informed of all relevant developments.
Building a Functional Community
Given the far reaching and cross cutting nature of the Getting it right agenda, a significant number of practitioners and policy makers could be seen as pivotal to implementation. The same could be said about teams and pockets of work across the country - in which case people should think about how they could be represented by agreeing who will act as their link to the Learning Community. It is anticipated that the number of active members of the Getting it right Learning Community could reach the low hundreds within the first 18 months. Whilst care needs to be taken to ensure that the right balance and level of membership is maintained, it will naturally alter and mature over time.
Whilst development will be ongoing throughout the life of the Community, support and participation from members will be especially important while the Learning Community and its virtual worksite is in it's infancy. For this reason a phased "development" approach will be adopted, with a particular reliance on "Community Champions" within the first 6 months.