New ways of working and new ways of being: Multi-agency working and professional identity

As professionals working within children’s services move towards more integrated networks and teams, they work alongside colleagues from different disciplines, professions and agencies. Although liaison and cooperative working have been in existence within localities throughout recent history, the new structures and reorganisations are requiring new ways of working with the aim of delivering better services for children, young people and their families. This paper considers some of the effects of the formation of new multi-agency teams upon the professional identities of the people involved. This is considered with reference to a national four-year research project concerned with learning in and for inter-agency work that uses activity theory as its organising theoretical and conceptual orientation. It is suggested that there is a need for greater understanding of the processes of team formation and membership, distribution of work and expertise, rule-bending and practitioner improvisation.