Using practice development methodology to develop children’s centre teams: Ideas for the future

Abstract

The Childrens Centre Program is a recent development in the UK and brings together multi agency teams to work together with disadvantaged families. Practice Development Methods enable teams to work together in new ways. Although the term practice development remains relatively poorly defined the key properties of it suggest that it embraces engagement, empowerment, evaluation and evolution. This paper introduces the Children`s Centre Program and Practice Development Methods and aims to discuss the relevance of using this method to develop teams in Children`s Centres through considering the findings from an evaluation of a two year project to develop inter agency public health teams.Key findings from the evaluation showed that Practice Development Methods can enable successful team development and showed that through effective facilitation teams can change their practice to focus on areas of local need. The team came up with their own process to develop a strategy for their locality. The following emerged as an effective series of steps for the team to follow.