Promoting inter-agency collaboration in child services.
Effective collaboration between agencies is often difficult to achieve. Children and their families/carers, who have complex therapeutic needs, present particular difficulties in that agencies need to work together, if they are to produce a co-ordinated and integrated package of care. A Multi-Agency-Consultation-Team (MACT) was set up in an attempt to overcome some of these problems of inter-agency co-operation. This paper describes the protocol, types of children referred and the recommendations made by the team. Follow-up of these children at 4 months suggests that a MACT does have a role to play in developing high quality services.
Bradford
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Child Psychology Service, St. Augustine's Hospital, Canterbury, Kent, UK.
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003191:Comprehensive Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004519:Education, Special / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D008297:Male; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012947:Social Work / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006113:United Kingdom