What does "Meta-" mean?

"Meta-" refers to the quality of sitting "at one remove" from the action, and thus having a "different perspective". Examples to explain this include the Ripples in a Pond and Dive Boat analogies.

The Meta-team

The Meta-team may in some situations be those KeyWorkers who are not working directly with a particular young person, but who make themselves available to the Keyworker who is "in the thick of it" via a Reflective Quorum. More formally, the MetaTeam refers to the team of specialist professionals who may not sit directly within the team, as keyworkers with caseloads themselves, but who have given consent to an agreed level of consultation to the team about areas requiring more specific expertise.

The nature of these agreements will vary from setting to setting and may range from a formal regular consultation slot, to something more fluid and informal, based on a shared understanding of the task and model. During AMBIT training these local experts will ideally be involved in sharing core skills from their area of expertise, as a means of:

(a) Extending reach

Extending the reach of specialist interventions into hard-to-reach settings: An analogy would be the expert working "through" the keyworker in the same way that a surgeon might work in inaccessible places via an endoscope - sometimes the surgeon has to open up the patient and lay her own hands on the injured part, but endoscopic surgery tends to lead to faster recovery if you can get away with this "lighter touch" approach.

(b) Engaging local experts

For instance local experts on Cognitive Behavioural methods of work, or systemic FamilyWork, etc: engaging these senior figures in the work of AMBIT training or the onwards Training exercises that we advise an AMBIT-influenced team to sustain will help to foster local ownership of local resources - be these skills or people.

(c) Reducing the cost of training

Many of the core evidence-based skills required for a properly multimodal and multidomain and evidence-based AMBIT intervention are probably already held within professionals employed locally.