Advice ShopPartnership is a familiar mantra to social workers, but to make it more than just rhetoric the participants must know how to build them. Suzy Braye outlines how you can develop better relationships

Partnership is a cherished notion in professional vocabulary. Easy to say, it is difficult to do. Can it really be achieved?

Social work's commitment to partnership has sometimes received a bad press. The Social Services Inspectorate has held partnership responsible for inappropriate attempts to return children to their birth families and for over-optimistic assessments of parents' abilities. While practitioners have been praised for doing it, they have been criticised for seeing partnership as an end rather than a means.

The scepticism is hardly surprising when we look at the barriers to partnership. Organisational and professional politics both play a part. The performance efficiency targets dominating agencies can detract from opportunities to develop partnership relationships. These take time and energy which practitioners have very little of.

Agencies have the power to define the problem and its solution, and this often conflicts with their professional goals of improving service users' control over their lives. Yet professionals too can guard their status and be fearful of sharing power, or doubt service users' ability to share decision-making.

Practice dilemmas also complicate the issue. How do we work in partnership with young people and parents, with disabled people and carers, when they have conflicting interests? Sadly, practitioners also talk about lack of partnership towards them from their employers.

The law has an important part to play in promoting partnership and practitioners can draw upon it.

n Be familiar with the legal mandates for partnership. These are often found in policy and practice guidance rather than acts of parliament. The original guidance issued alongside the Children Act 1989 and the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 is peppered with references to the principles and practice of partnership. More recently the new assessment framework for children in need emphasises co-operative working relationships, based on respect, information, openness and honesty.

· Recognise that partnership does not happen solely through an act of will, or a deeply held conviction that it is the right thing to do. It is founded upon building blocks. When practitioners express disappointment at service users' apparent unwillingness to work in partnership, it is sometimes because they are trying to build on shaky foundations. The capacity for partnership on both sides must be developed through information sharing, consultation, representation in decision-making and advocacy. These all contribute to full partnership.

· Be aware that these building blocks for partnership have strong legal backing too. Children's wishes and feelings, and those of their parents or carers, must be taken into account in decision-making. Users of community care services and their carers should participate in assessment and care planning and have opportunities to exercise choice. Access to information is legally required, both in relation to services and to personal information. Consultation on service plans is mandatory, as are mechanisms for representation and redress.

· Draw on case law, which arises from judicial decision-making in individual circumstances. Case law is helpful if you are trying to manage the dilemmas of competing priorities, such as between the views of children and their parents. It helps determine what level of partnership is appropriate, and with whom.

The legal mandates need not be empty rhetoric. They help overcome barriers to partnership practice and provide important reference points for service users and practitioners alike. They remind us that professionals must keep the offer of partnership on the table, even when it is not accepted as eagerly as we would like. Keeping the negotiation open is crucial while we build stronger foundations.