Work Matters: Management: Children's centre leader network - Strength in numbers

The knowledge and experience gained by the 3,000 children's centre leaders is a vast resource that is about to be tapped with the launch of the national Children's Centre Leader Network (CCLN).

A joint venture between Together for Children and the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), the CCLN is designed to bring together the knowledge and experience of leaders to address key areas such as performance management, financial management and partnership working.

It will be a network for children's centre leaders run by children's centre leaders, where they can meet face-to-face and online, to create specialist interest groups and engage in practitioner research. The focus of the network will remain firmly fixed on the contribution it can make to improving outcomes for children and families and continuous quality improvement in professional practice.

Learning together

The network was officially launched last April at the first national children's centre leaders conference. Since then a great deal of work has been happening behind the scenes to make the network a reality.

Margy Whalley, director of the Pen Green Centre, chairs a reference group established to be the authentic voice of children's centre leaders. Nineteen children's centre leaders, drawn from every government region in England, form the reference group. They meet four times a year, two of these meetings with minister for children Beverley Hughes.

It is anticipated that the children's centre leader network will provide support for leaders at all stages of their professional development. It will offer an opportunity to network with peers and learn together. Members can share new knowledge before, during and after professional development opportunities such as undertaking the National Professional Qualification for Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) and the completion of individual masters degrees, post-NPQICL.

Personal invitations will soon be mailed to all leaders to attend the first of nine network meetings during November. Regional and supra-regional events will run four times each year. National, local and specialist interest networks are expected to emerge through engagement in experiential and values-based approaches. Leaders will be encouraged to attend the formal sessions and also to create their own informal meetings as self-sustaining learning communities, providing peer coaching and mentoring support.

Together for Children is developing a dedicated CCLN area of its website at www.children'scentres.org. This will provide information, networking and sharing opportunities. By 2009 this website will become a dedicated interactive learning and communication environment for children's centre leaders, hosted by NCSL's improved electronic platform. Here leaders will be able to engage in online discussion forums, share information about their centres and explore a bank of resources and useful website links.

System leadership

NPQICL impact evidence suggests that some of the most powerful leadership learning occurs when leaders engage in dialogue, challenge one another and explore how to create an environment of support and containment.

Children's centre leaders have a role both within and beyond their centres and provide a key structure for agencies to work together and create a positive impact on localities. By engaging with other leaders in a network they can enhance their 'system leadership' ability.

NCSL has worked on a conceptual model of system leadership, which it defines as those who are 'in the front line, wrestling with the complexities of local context, asking better and deeper questions of themselves, of others' (NCSL 2006, page 2).

By using experiential approaches, the network will encourage leaders to develop and widen their reflective and critical thinking skills. These are key attributes for successful leaders to lead change, build their own and their colleagues' confidence levels and encourage children's centre teams to identify how their work contributes to securing better outcomes for children and families.

Experienced children's centre leaders are experts in integrated working and have a portfolio of transferable skills. Evidence from the impact study of NPQICL (NCSL, 2008) demonstrates that these graduates are moving into strategic local authority posts, making a significant contribution to the development of the children's workforce.

With the Government's commitment to deliver a children's centre for every community by 2010, children's centre leaders will now have the additional benefit of a mutual national support network where they can contribute to policy development and shape improved integrated working and practice in all communities.

REFERENCES

NCSL, 2006, 'System leadership in action: Leading networks leading the system', available at www.ncsl.org

NCSL, 2008, 'The impact of the NPQICL on children's centre leaders and their centre', Nottingham, NCSL

NPQICL - HOW EFFECTIVE?

Evaluation studies carried out over the past three years of the NPQICL's existence have judged it to be a successful programme. To date over 1,000 leaders have graduated from the programme, with another 400 currently enrolled.

It is shown to have high levels of impact on participants in terms of increased self-confidence, greater knowledge about leadership, new skills and changes in attitudes, values and beliefs.

Veronica Wellington, senior programme manager for NPQICL, based at the NCSL, says, 'It has a demonstrable impact on the way that centres are managed, on relationships between children's centre teams and also with external agencies. NCSL is confident that the reshaped programme will continue to demonstrate the same high impact in 2009 and beyond.

'The programme will be continuously improved to enhance its quality. For example, the processes behind the centre- based assessment will be reworked for 2009 so leaders are better able to capture and identify evidence of improved outcomes for children and families.'