What the strategy means for
People working in maternity and early years care may have to work in different ways, to help turn this strategy into action.
Information should flow between services more easily
- Professionals need to access shared information services, and this means that systems and processes will begin to change
- Professionals will be asked to engage in the process of infrastructure improvement – which means being open to new technologies, and willing to feed back constructively
- We will be developing a new, cross region and cross service referral system for all professionals to use
- Professionals will be asked to prioritise the task of keeping child-level data up-to-date and accurate
Services should become user-centred
- There will be more opportunities for professionals to feed into both strategic and service planning decisions
- Having a user-centred service means listening to families and being willing to change
- This will be a good opportunity to make changes to how work is planned
We will bring services closer together
- Professionals will be expected to adopt common ways of working across services
- More of our professionals will be asked to work in multi agency teams – for some, this might mean time spent in a shared location; but most often it will mean better and more frequent communication between teams
- Professionals will have more opportunities to meet and work with colleagues in other services
We are asking the regional strategic partners to value and invest in the Early Years workforce
- There will be new training and development opportunities, for example in user-centred design and evidence-informed practice
- We want teams to share examples of good practice, and will create more opportunities for them to showcase work they are proud of
- There will be more recruitment into Early Years roles, to reduce vacancy rates in key services. We know that there are national shortages in some professions, and we need to act to protect staff wellbeing
Information about services should be better
- We will continue to improve the information provided online about services in our region to make sure it is clear, accurate and easy to use
- Professionals will be expected to access online information about services available to families in the areas where they work, and to actively promote them
- Delivering on this promise means making sure that information held online about services is up-to-date and accurate, and service managers must take responsibility for this
- Each service will identify someone to lead on a shared communications plan and contribute to cross-agency communication efforts
