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

摘要

The Children’s Centre Programme is a recent development in the UK and brings togetherudmulti-agency teams to work with disadvantaged families. Practice development methodsudenable teams to work together in new ways. Although the term practice developmentudremains relatively poorly defined, its key properties suggest that it embraces engagement,udempowerment, evaluation and evolution. This paper introduces the Children’s CentreudProgramme and practice development methods and aims to discuss the relevance of usingudthis method to develop teams in children’s centres through considering the findings from anudevaluation of a two-year project to develop inter-agency public health teams.udThe evaluation showed that practice development methods can enable successful teamuddevelopment and showed that through effective facilitation, teams can change their practice toudfocus on areas of local need. The team came up with their own process to develop a strategyudfor their locality.