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Healthcare organizations worldwide were badly hit by the “surprise” of the pandemic. Hospitals in particular are trying hard to manage problems it caused, searching for solutions to protect the health of citizens and reorienting operations. The implementation of resilience solutions in the coping phase and the ability to react promptly and redefine activities is essential. Integrating crisis management and resiliency literature, this paper discusses how health organizations were able to cope with adversity during the crisis.

The research is conducted through a case study of a large Italian hospital, the Gemelli Polyclinic Foundation, which was one of the leading hospitals in the Italian response to the pandemic.

The case reports actions taken in order to continue functioning and to maintain core activities despite severe adversity. The overall response of the Gemelli was the result of the three types of response: behavioral (effective leadership), cognitive (rapid resource reallocation) and the contextual reinforcement (multiagency network response). The authors highlight how an integrative framework of crisis management and resiliency could be applied to healthcare organizations in the coping phase of the pandemic. The experience of the Gemelli can thus be useful for other hospitals and organizations facing external crises and for overall improvement of crisis management and resilience. Responding to crisis brings the opportunity to make innovations introduced during emergencies structural, and embed them moving forward.

The paper focuses only on the coping phase of the response to the pandemic, whereas building long-term resilience requires understanding how organizations accumulate knowledge from crises and adapt to the “new normal.”

The paper responds to the call for empirical studies to advance knowledge of an integrative framework of crisis management and resiliency theories with reference to complex organizations such as healthcare.

Case studies have long been a staple ingredient of professional training, but among the challenges of using them are the difficulty of ensuring that their situations and elements accurately reflect the complexity of current case reality, achieving applicability across networking agencies, and the time they can take to create or obtain. The Center for Child and Family Studies is increasingly having participants create their own case studies for use in ongoing professional training. Practically, this method has several advantages. Theoretically, it is in keeping with constructivist values and the principles of adult learning. Though it does not work in every training situation in which cases may be used, it can greatly enrich training and training outcomes where it is feasible.

The purpose of this paper is to outline what early support should be offered to children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions including those who are autistic or have intellectual disability. A review of all child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) services in the Northwest completed by NHS England and Improvement (Doyle and Ryan, 2021) found that there was no clear Tier 2 offer (for mild to moderate mental health issues) for autistic children and young people or for those with intellectual disability. Following this review, a project group that had developed a model for mental health services for autistic children and young people and for those with intellectual disability (Wee et al., 2021) was tasked with articulating the “Getting Help” offer for children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions, including intellectual disability.

A working group was created consisting of professionals from mental health, education and local authority and lived experience representatives of coproduction partners. A brief review of the background literature was also conducted. Six meetings were held to create a framework for the “Getting Help” offer and to discuss what the offer should be based on professional expertise and lived experience.

Recommendations for the Getting Help multi-agency offer included pre- and post-assessment support as part of a single attention deficit hyperactivity disorder/autism/neurodevelopmental pathway, community support for children with intellectual disability, access to adapted mental health support and the need for early recognition and support for avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder. Key themes from working group discussions included the reduction in the quality of services experienced by children and families due to silo working, which increased the risk of falling between multi-agency services and led to early signs of neurodevelopmental needs, or mental health issues being missed. Another theme was aiming for equity of access and outcomes.

This work is a response to a coproduced review of CAMHS in the Northwest and incorporates the lived experience of young people and families. It also adopts a holistic multi-agency neurodevelopmental approach rather than focusing on a single diagnosis or service.

This paper aims to endeavour to sketch out a blueprint for effective collaborative working in resettlement.

The paper is based on a review of the relevant research and interviews with professionals concerned with the resettlement of young people from custody in organisations and agencies that were partners in the Beyond Youth Custody programme.

Practitioners working on the youth resettlement pathway between custody and community report collaborative practices to be more beneficial both to the young people involved as well as the practitioners themselves, in the conduct of their efforts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this paper consists in its investigation of resettlement practice by consulting those actually engaged in the resettlement process.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Engeström's “third generation” activity theory, with its emphasis on developing conceptual tools to understand dialogues, multiple perspectives and networks of interacting activity systems, has informed research into professional learning in multiagency service settings in England.

Researchers worked intensively with multi‐professional teams in five English local authorities. Through the use of developmental research work (DWR) methodologies, they sought to understand and facilitate the expansive learning that takes place in and for multiagency work.

Provisional analysis of data has emphasised the need to understand activity systems in terms of contradictions, which may be developed through reference to the notion of labour‐power; subject positioning and identity within activities; emotional experiencing in processes of personal transformation. The general working hypothesis of learning itself requires expansion to include notions of experiencing and identity formation within an account that includes systematic and coherent analysis of the wider social structuring of society.

The paper describes the beginnings of a refinement of DWR methodology, workshop methods and activity theory derived analyses of data generated through DWR.

The analysis offered represents an advance beyond second generation activity theory, which was concerned with single activity systems. The conceptual strands (upon labour‐power related contradictions, subject positioning, emotional experiencing) have been under‐developed in activity theory. This project exemplifies the complexities of the “dual motive” of object‐oriented activity systems.

A multiagency approach to supporting and enhancing child welfare lies at the heart of policies and practice in England and many other countries. The assumption is that if professionals together from different disciplines share their knowledge and skills this will lead to better outcomes for children and their families. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the “normal practice” of such arrangements. This research explored how the pandemic's disruption led to new ways of communicating and professional behaviour, while exploring the potential for longer-term impact in England and other jurisdictions.

Case studies were conducted in 2020 in five English local authorities to explore how schools worked with Children's Social Care and other professionals during the COVID-19 period. It was supplemented by a survey of schools and discussions with and reflections from those with relevant experience in five other countries.

Many schools played an extended role in supporting vulnerable and “in need” families during this period. Children's Social Care recognised their contributions and the improved communication achieved, although schools were divided over whether relationships had improved. Most communication and meetings were online; while benefits were noted there were concerns for families who were digitally disadvantaged.

The work provides a contemporary picture of multiagency work during the 2020 pandemic and identifies factors which may shape this work in the future in England and internationally.

This chapter aims to investigate how a range of emerging trends within the international community can be used to build a connective educational ecosystem based on an inclusive and universal process (Biggeri et al., 2017; Ziegler, 2017). The starting question is: how multidisciplinary teams in Italy could take action toward inclusive education?

Partnering is becoming a central system organization strategy for schools to adopt for successful innovative teams with creative educational ideas (Kelly et al., 2002), and here it is declined in the Italian context in which inclusive education was officially embraced in 1977 as a national policy (D'Alessio, 2011). National legislation (104/92 Law) made explicit the mandate that students with disabilities receive their education (to the maximum extent possible) with nondisabled peers in the general education classroom using appropriate supplemental aids and services in the least-restrictive environment (Anastasiou et al., 2015; Canevaro & de Anna, 2010).

It is crucial to encourage new forms of practice which require collaboration capabilities (Hattie, 2015; Vangrieken et al., 2015) between multidisciplinary teams that comprised general teachers, special education teachers, health professionals, school psychologists, school leaders, and the students' family (Meirink et al., 2010). These resources could be distributed across inclusive ecosystems to support all students by enabling them to prosper in an increasingly diversified and complex environment in which creativity, ability to innovate, entrepreneurship, and a commitment to continuous learning are joint and connective (EU, 2008). This creates a state of positive multiagency collaboration that promotes the well-being of students and the system.

The purpose of this study is to identify strengths and weaknesses in knowledge sharing between related post-bushfire investigative agencies. Based on this study, such a sharing of knowledge is essential to enhance collaboration amongst practitioners in the reduction and management of the risk of bushfires.

The authors use a case study methodology; the research design is based on comparative analysis of six post-bushfire investigative departments in Italy and Australia (Victoria). A total of 44 bushfire investigators were interviewed between 2012 and 2013, across the two countries. Using focus groups and face-to-face interviews, the extent and quality of intra- and interagency knowledge sharing is analysed.

Despite the desire to collaborate, there are three main conditions that prevent an effective interagency collaboration within the bushfire investigation network, namely, separation, unidirectionality and interpersonal disengagement. This study finds that knowledge sharing suffers from a missing “feedback system” culture, where agencies give each other feedback with strictly bureaucratic purposes, rather than create an ongoing learning mechanism that develops after every investigation. At agency level, we also find that, sharing investigative knowledge and experience through daily and planned meetings is a standard practice to police members; but this is not found in the fire agencies. When made cross-country comparisons between Australia and Italy, the existence of common courses, joint manuals and the sharing of human resources witnessed in Australia (Victoria) is something that would benefit Italian agencies still trapped in a competitive and jurisdictional mindset. At the same time, Australian agencies might want to reconsider the separation between bushfire suppression and investigation, a distinction that has been made clear in Italy through the creation of full-time bushfire investigator positions.

This paper contributes to the improvement of interagency collaboration through the development of an investigative “social knowledge”. It reinforces the assumption that, to reduce and effectively manage the risk of bushfires, a combined effort from different stakeholders involved in forensic investigation is necessary.

Given the lack of research undertaken in the area of bushfire investigation, the current paper represents a unique piece of work. It is unusual, not only in identifying the current issues within the bushfire investigation network but also in providing agencies with theoretical and practical insights on how to reduce the extremely high number of bushfires and their risks.

Supporting the learning and wellbeing of vulnerable students is an important yet challenging part of school educators’ work. The purpose of this paper is to investigate advice-seeking patterns around the issue of supporting the learning and wellbeing of vulnerable students, among professional staff in six English secondary schools. The paper focuses on investigating variation in advice-seeking patterns among schools, exploring the association between these patterns and staff perceptions of the school climate for collaboration, and examining how these informal advice-seeking patterns relate to formal support arrangements in the schools.

A mixed-methods approach that combined findings from social network analysis with in-depth interviews was used.

It was found that advice-seeking patterns among staff vary substantively, even among similar schools. Furthermore, schools with more cohesive and reciprocal advice networks also showed a stronger climate for collaboration (i.e. mutual respect and distributed leadership). Also, formal organizational structures and informal advice-seeking structures showed coherence in the sample, as formally designated leaders, such as the Headteacher and the Special Educational Needs Coordinators, were generally highly central to their schools’ advice network.

This study advances the field as there is little research that examines the social networks of educators in England, and no previous studies that explore teacher advice-seeking networks in relation to supporting vulnerable students, internationally.