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Leadership distribution culturally? School of Education Seminar Series University of Stirling 27 March 2012 Joan Forbes & Elspeth McCartney
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Leadership distribution culturally?
School of Education Seminar Series University of Stirling
27 March 2012 Joan Forbes & Elspeth McCartney
Focus of the paper
Education/Speech and Language Therapist social capital when working together in schools and children’s services
The operation of professional networks, norms and trust for leadership in inter/professional relationships
Paper is part of a wider research project into co-practice relations in children’s services.
The current policy agenda
Scotland - Getting it Right for Every Child (SE, 2005) USA – No child Left Behind Act (2001) England – Every Child Matters agenda (DfES, 2004) NI- Extended Schools initiative (DE, NI, 2005) Wales – A Fair Future for Our Children (WAG, 2005) Eire – Giving Children an Even Break (DoES, IE, 2001)
HMIe (2009) Improving Scottish Education
Identifies issues to be addressed in child service partnerships
Individuals, establishments and services cannot on their own deliver what is required in today’s demanding context. Priorities are:
Strengthening partnerships across sectors and services [towards]…a unified learning and support system…
Ensuring that education plays its full part in taking forward the GiRFEC approach,…the behaviours which will sustain effective partnership working
Research now needed into ‘not fully successful
interprofessional ties’ (HMIe, 2009)
Interprofessional ties – practitioners’ social capital
Micro level- of individuals’ different knowledges & skills
Subject disciplinary and practice specific knowledges with which practitioners identify
Rethinking micro level knowledge bases and meso-level practices within shifts in macro level policy & governance aimed to re-design children’s services
SLTs in Education: (mainly) Dual-sector/ - professional
Policies
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (1996) The Education of Pupils with Language and Communication Disorders
Scottish Office (1998) New Community Schools: The Prospectus
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (2004)The Sum of its Parts? The Development of Integrated Community Schools in Scotland
SE (2005a) Getting it Right for Every Child: Proposals for Action
SG (2008) The Guide to Getting it Right for Every Child
SLTs in Education: (mainly) Mono-sector/ -professional
Policies
Health Professions Council (2003) Standards of Proficiency SLTs: 1b2
RCSLT (2005) Clinical Guidelines SE (2005b) Delivery through Leadership: NHS
Scotland Leadership Development Framework General Teaching Council Scotland (2006)
Standard for Registration Element 2.1.5 SG (2007) Better Health, Better Care Action
Plan Section 3 SG (2010) Guidance on Partnership Working
between AHPs and Education
What does social capital theory add?
A move from ‘market’ discourses Re-inserting concern with the ‘social’ into
policy Questioning underlying norms, networks
and trust Transdisciplinary theory and analytics for
transdisciplinary issues in services A theory that grasps the materiality of
relations and disjunctures in policy, practice & professional knowledges & skills
Key social capital concepts
Potential of social capital for creation of networks, norms and trust, which can overcome disadvantage (Coleman; 1994; Putnam, 1996, 2000).
‘Networks, norms and trust & bonding, bridging & linking connections contribute to the accumulation of social capital.
Key ideas in social capital
BONDING SOCIAL CAPITAL- strong bonds can help people ‘get by’ but may also be limiting
BRIDGING SOCIAL CAPITAL- builds relationships with a wider, more varied set of people: good for ‘getting on’
LINKING SOCIAL CAPITAL – connects people in different power/status positions in hierarchies
Key terms in SC: Networks, norms, trust and reciprocity
An analytical framework to take account of practitioners’ social
capital relations
Bonding – strong work relations with/within own home agency & subject discipline (e.g. linguistics)
Bridging – good inter-practitioner, inter-agency work relations underpinned by appropriate mixes of human capital (qualifications, knowledge & skills)
Linking – good work relations across institutions’ hierarchies underpinned by transprofessional structures & forums to institute & support change towards integrated services
MACRO-LEVEL:
Bonding
Exclusive confidence in home agency governance
Bridging
Trans-agencytrust under-pinned by
policy
Linking
Cross-agency policy
linked by trust
Trust/Sanctions
National level:inter-
agency governanc
eand policy
level
Cross-agency policy linked/ characterized by relations of
trust
Inter-agency ties in service
level agreements
Children’s services
links governed by users’
values
Norms
Privileging single home agency or
disciplinary group policy
networks
Ties across agencies’
governance & policy networks
Governance & policy networks
linking agencies’
hierarchies
Networks
MESO:LEVEL
Bonding
Strong/exclusive
recognition of home
professional trust &
confidence
Bridging
Confidence & regard in practices of
other professionals
– or not
Linking
Professional hierarchies
respect & link to other
professionals practice - or
not
Trust/Sanctions
Practice level: inter-professional
level in children’s services sites
Exclusive norms & values in
professionals education
& in practice
Practice connections
to other professionals
norms & values
Links to other professionals hierarchies’
practice’ norms
Norms
Privileging home
profession/ site practice
networks
Practice connections to networks & sites of
other professionals
Practice links & networks at professionals.
& service levels
Networks
MICRO-LEVEL:
Bonding
Exclusive home
profession confidence and regard
Bridging
Trust and support of
other professions
Linking
Supporting and
supported by other
profession’sleaders
Trust/Sanctions
Knowledge and skills/individual
practitioner level
Exclusive bonds to
norms and values of
own profession
Connected to other
professions’ norms and
values
Knowledge links to other professions -
less/morepowerful
Norms
Strong/privileged
mono-profession knowledge networks
Knowledge ties to
networks in/of other professions
Links to skills of other
professions’ leaders and hierarchies
Networks
How do children’s services policy constitute leadership?
Leadership seen as a principal mechanism to implement co-professional working: positional and distributed leadership.
GiRFEC positional leaders: ‘named person’, ensuring a child has the right help, usually school manager ‘lead professional’, coordinating multi-agency planning, appointed ‘ad hoc’.
Guidance on Partnership Working AHPs/Education: positional leaders in organisations should create ‘a context and an ethos in which staff can work together well’.
How do children’s services policy constitute leadership?
Cont’d.
Distributed leadership: ‘recognising each others’ leadership role rather than relying on job titles and positions of authority’ (p42).
‘leadership is about focusing all activities on delivering an effective service to young people’ (p42).
Very broad definition: cf. Peck and Dickinson (2008 p. 23) ‘what the government considers effective leadership starts to look suspiciously like smart followership’.
How do children’s services policy constitute leadership?
Cont’d.
Such conceptualisations of distributed leadership are so wide they could include almost all co-working activities.
What constitutes good distributed leadership remains underspecified.
Social capital analysis
Is practitioner leadership bonding in nature, privileging strong mono-professional knowledge base networks?
Is practitioner leadership bridging in nature, with knowledge ties forged to the knowledge and skills networks of other professions in other subject disciplines?
Is practitioner leadership linking in nature, with necessary links forged at appropriate levels in other agencies’ hierarchies/ professional organisations?
Social capital analysis cont’d.
Mono-professional policies sustain mono-professional practices: supporting (limiting) mono-professional knowledge base networks and social capital bonds.
Mono-professional pre- and in-service training supports (limiting) mono-professional knowledge base networks and social capital bonds (and see Forbes & McCartney 2011).
Social capital analysis cont’d. Some change initiatives such as GiRFEC’s opt-
in learning community should sustain bridging leadership, with knowledge ties forged to the knowledge and skills networks of other professions.
Such bridging social capital relations should support innovatory approaches to supporting children in schools by fostering change across and between networks (Clark 2007).
Social capital analysis cont’d.
However, teacher/SLT relationships are brief, bridging between strongly intra-professionally bonded networks of health and education (and see Forbes & McCartney 2012), so bridging ties will remain weak.
Nonetheless, backed by policy enjoinders, weak bridging ties may go a long way to providing better services for individual children in their school settings.
Social capital analysis cont’d.
GiRFEC implementation procedures and Guidance on Partnership Working AHPs/Education frameworks and templates offer opportunities for positional leaders to develop and formalise links at appropriate levels with ‘other profession’ practitioners.
Conclusions Policy rhetoric supports inter-agency links and
distributed leadership. The roles of and training for mono-professional
leaders remain more extensively specified in governance and legislation.
Current practices reinforce weak bridging and linking relationships.
Conclusions cont’d. But to effect the culture change sought across
the policy and practice terrain of children’s services re-distribution of leadership culturally (MacBeath 2009) would be timely, that is practising leadership as a reflection of services’ real culture, ethos and traditions of co-working.
Conclusions cont’d. Further, to better identify and understand
current knowledge/s and skills for more suitable forms of leadership in the re-design of children’s services, an integrated and coherent programme of research into children’s sector practitioner education through the career lifecourse – including leadership roles – is now needed, drawing on potentially fruitful social-spatial relational analytics such as those of social capital.
Reference
Forbes, J. & McCartney, E. Leadership distribution culturally? Education/Speech and Language Therapist social capital in schools and children’s services, International Journal of Leadership in Education: Theory & Practice. First published online 31 August 2011.
Additional Papers Forbes, J. & McCartney, E. (2010) Social capital
theory: a cross-cutting analytic for teacher/therapist work in integrating children’s services. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 26.3, 321-334
Forbes, J. & McCartney, E. (2011) Educating Scotland’s future together? Inter/professional preparation for schools and children’s services. Scottish Educational Review, 43 (2), 39-54
Forbes, J. & McCartney, E. (2012) Changing children’s services: a social capital analyses. In M. Hill, G. Head, A. Lockyer, B. Reid & R.Taylor (Eds.) Children’s Services: Working Together. Harlow: Pearson.
