If social care was a fruit machine, the idea of partnership working would be its "three lemons" moment. Joint working? Eureka! It will instantly transform barren wastelands into lands of milk and honey.
But while the notion is divinely simple, the devil is in the detail. Partnerships can't and won't just happen - you have to work at them. Indeed, the successes and pitfalls of partnership were manifest in a joint project in Northamptonshire led by the national charity Victim Support, which provides free and confidential advice and support to people affected by crime.
"Last year, working with Women's Aid, police and lifelong learning, we received a £10,000 grant from the community safety partnership to develop a joint project to research the needs of victims of domestic abuse within the western area of the county - a large rural area which includes the market towns of Daventry, Towcester and Brackley," says Glynis Bliss, county director of Victim Support, Northamptonshire.
"By using existing resources more effectively, we wanted to establish the needs of victims of domestic abuse and determine how a multi-agency approach could meet those needs," she says.
A working group including one person from each agency was set up, as was a strategic group to manage the project. "We wanted to see what services were already being provided and how we might be able to piggy-back onto them. For example, lifelong learning might seem an unusual partner for a domestic abuse project but the mobile library visits several very small villages and hamlets in the western area. We could certainly make information available but perhaps also begin to look at having a worker attached to the library to provide outreach services," she says.
Although the project did achieve positive outcomes, for example on improved cross-referrals, and working together on planned responses and packages of care, for Bliss it was particularly successful in terms of learning. "We learned a lot about what not to do and what was needed to get projects like this off to a kick-start," she says.
"We learned that having separate working and strategic groups simply didn't work. The working group floundered in the first few months without someone there to provide direction and control. Although each worker was very committed in carrying out their own responsibilities they weren't able to link well together. Tensions arose between workers and it wasn't achieving the intended outputs, so halfway through the year we amalgamated the groups. After that things greatly improved."
Unsurprisingly, communication also improved, but that was far from instant. Says Bliss: "It really needed time for trust and understanding to develop between the agencies and workers. Barriers included misunderstandings, lack of confidence and overly high expectations."
Another difficulty arose concerning data collection. "There was a tension, for example, between the statutory and voluntary agencies. Resource differences ranged from what computers and software each agency had, to what capabilities there were for common case recording and case management systems. These were big issues that weren't resolved in the lifetime of the project."
Sadly, as can happen with such projects, key individuals moved on with subsequent delays in allocating replacements. Two who left had previously provided strong links to funders, and their loss led to the failure to secure funding for the project's proposed second and third years.
For Bliss, the positive outcomes (for example, new client interview bases opened, the training of Home Start volunteers, and strong promotional material being distributed through links with health and education) outweighed the difficulties. "Everything was an add-on to people's work - we couldn't afford a project worker and that made us extend our thinking to meet needs more effectively.
"We hoped that by joining up we would become more efficient and effective. The challenge now is to keep our final report and recommendations alive: to see individual agencies continue to include domestic violence within their targets and plans - and free up management team to make sure that work is carried out," she says.
Curriculum Vitae:
Name: Glynis Bliss.
Job: County director of Victim Support, Northamptonshire.
Qualifications: City & Guilds - community and social care; BTec - voluntary sector management.
Last job: Social worker with mentally ill older people.
First job: Firearms and aliens officer, a civilian post within the police force.
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