The Free Centers for Educational Guidance (VCLB's) of the future

2017 – Since the autumn of 2015 the VCLB, Free Centers for Educational Guidance in East Flanders, Flemish Brabant, Antwerp and Limburg work to a renewal of the Centers; they do so together with their umbrella organisation and Flandres Synergy (FS). An article about this process is published in FS’s  Members Magazine No. 9, March 2017; this article is summarized below. 

Workplace innovation
Supported by their umbrella organisation and FS, the Centers have jointly described their work in seven core processes. The goal was to bring more common-orientation in the operation. It is not the purpose to introduce uniformity. Each Center started a discussion about how to design their own organisation. A number of Centers already have decided about their new organisational model. They have formed multidisciplinary teams around one or more of the core processes. Previously they worked in disciplinary teams, that made it necessary to have coordinating meetings, which is additional work. 

Driver
The reason to start this change process is in various social changes and new government policies. For example, the ‘M-decreet’ which stipulates that more ‘students with an indication’ should be included in mainstream education. Another example is the proposed policy changes regarding student guidance. Also they have experienced that the questions of students and parents are becoming more and more complex. Furthermore it now appears that the Centers are held accountable to too many different things. Clarity and focus is therefore warranted. 

Approach
At all Centers a change team is installed.
To achieve the desired common-orientation, the seven core processes defined centrally were elaborated locally together with the employees of each Center. And at all Centers a discussion is started about the proper organisational structure. This has already lead to different solutions, depending on the local situation; in one Centre a multidisciplinary team works at the core processes 4 and 5 and in the other there are two teams that perform respectively core process 4 or 5. All combinations can occur.
The second step on the level of the Center is to agree on who will enter into which team, how the roles and responsibilities will be distributed and what the arrangements are concerning cooperation, decision-making and conduct. The principle is that one can do what his or her preference is as much as possible and where his or her best competences lie. And the goal is that the teams grow develop to self-management.
The umbrella organisation of VCLB functions as a learning network during the transition. 

Results

The article does not provide any results of the organisational changes. 

Reference

Samain, Sven en Eeckelaert, Lieven: ‘Puzzelen aan het VCLB van de toekomst’. In Flandres Synergy’s members magazine, FS Inspireert nr. 9, March 2017, Goede praktijken. The article is attached.

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