Session Information
03 SES 02 B, Curriculum Policy and Practice.
Paper Session
Contribution
The integration of services for young people in education, social work, health and the criminal justice system in England , with its attendant requirement for closer and more systematic inter-agency working and the development of a more holistic ‘trans-professional’ knowledge base, offers challenges for those seeking to understand the nature of policy development in this field.. Relating policy to practice in this area is problematic at each level – local, national and trans-national/global (Hulme and Cracknell 2009, Hulme, Cracknell and Owens 2009, Forbes 2006). In particular reform has challenged policy makers at national and regional levels who lack an institutional memory for how to translate policy into practice. International examples from the USA (Lawson 2004, 2008) and Scandinavian notions of social pedagogy and even local examples in Scotland (Forbes 2006) have been ignored in an attempt to ‘drive through’ change from the top.
Recently, the UK government, frustrated with lack of progress on embedding integrated practice has used a language which seems to suggest a break from the established ‘what works’ evidence base. Recent policy documents have discovered a new emphasis on creativity within and between professional groupings. A recent Cabinet Office Report, Public Service Reform: making government work better (Maclean, K 2009, Cabinet Office refers to three drivers of contemporary policy, “citizen empowerment, new professionalism and strategic leadership for government. This builds upon the Excellence and Fairness Report (HMSO 2009) which extends the “new professionalism” to ‘all people who work in public services’
The current thrust of evidence informed policy on professionalism, the move towards ‘new professionalism’, ‘integrated professionalism’ seem to require a level of creativity and re-imagining which require a re-negotiation of the relations of partnership which have for so long been shaped by conceptions of the evidence – informed practice in education. Excellence and Fairness refers to a new professionalism which “unleashes creativity of those who work in the frontline”. Hammersley – Fletcher and Adnett (2009) refer to the difficulty of teachers adapting from imposed change and compliance to the flexibility required of the ‘remodelled workforce’ for collective working. These discourses are also evident in the medical profession with concepts such as Good Doctor, Safer patients
In order to examine how the Every Child Matters agenda is being translated and mediated at national and regional levels the following questions will be investigated:
- What are the origins of the discourses and evidence underpinning policy development in recent initiatives to ‘re-model’ the workforce in education and children’s services in the light of the ECM agency’s joint’-up’ multi-agency approach?
- How is this ‘evidence based practice’ of the joined up approach constructed, translated and mediated by regional policy actors?
- How do policy makers respond to the ECM agenda in the absence of an institutional memory for policy development in this field?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Department for Education and Skills (2003) Every Child Matters. London, Stationery Office. Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989) –Building theories through case study research Academy of Management Review, vol 14, no 4, 532-550 Excellence and Fairness Report ( 2009) HMSO Government Strategy Unit Homepage Forbes, J. (2006) Types of social capital: tools to explore service integration? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1-16 Greenhalgh, T., & Russell, J. (2005). Reframing evidence synthesis as rhetorical action in the policy making drama. Healthcare Policy, 1(2), 34-42. Haas, E. (1992), ‘Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Co-ordination’, International Organisation 46, 1, 1-35 Hammersley –Fletcher, L. and Adnett, N. (2009)'Workforce remodelling at the national and school level. Education Management, Admin and Leadership 37, 2: 181-198 Hulme, R & Cracknell, D. (2009) Learning Across Boundaries: Developing Trans-professional understanding through Practitioner Enquiry, in Campbell, A. and Groundwater-Smith, S. (Ed.s) Connecting Inquiry and Professional Learning in Education: International Perspectives and Practical Solutions. Abingdon, Routledge Hulme, R. and Owens, A (2009), . Learning in Third Spaces, Developing Trans-professional Understanding Through Practitioner Enquiry, Journal of Education Action Research Lawson, H. (2004) The logic of collaboration in education and the human services. The Journal of Inter-professional Care 18, 225-237. Lawson,H., Anderson-Butcher, D., Cahoon-Byrnes, E., Lawson , M. (2008) ‘Getting Inside the Black Box of a Complex, Collaborative Initiative by Eliciting Staff Members’ Theories of Action’, Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association Conference, March 9-11, New York K. MacLean (2009) Public Service Reform. Making Government Work Better, Cabinet Office Schwandt, T. A. (2005). The Centrality of Practice to Evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 26(1), 95-105. Yin, R. K. (2008) Case Study Research, Design and Methods, Sage London
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