LOIS SEDDON
November 2012
Consider the meaning of working in partnership in
the context of working with families and young
people
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Enables strength based approached
Helps avoid dependency model
To enable clients / young people to see you as a
resource
Reciprocity
Hegemony – accepted norms co - opted and
become jargon / expectations of society
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Collaboration?
Cooperation?
Coordination?
Coalition?
Alliance?
Helping?
Sharing?
50 / 50?
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What assumptions are made about the
concept?
What elements do we really understand about
the concept?
What elements do we not really understand?
Is it a ‘common – sense’ concept?
Is it a self-evident concept?
Is it a concept that means the same thing or
different thing in different contexts?
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Partnership is significant in its own right.
It is not an add-on to other issues.
It therefore warrants greater attention in
relation to theory development
Information and guidance may be provided for
parents or carers in terms of how changes in their
behaviour can result in changes in their child’s
behaviour. For example in encouraging a secure
attachment.
How do you work in partnership in this situation?
What do you have to set in place?
What skills will you need?
How will you know that the partnership was
successful?
Good in two senses?:
 Morally good (underpinned by ethics) –
relating to the on - going therapeutic
relationship
 Technically good – effective in achieving the
outcome – working towards the achievement of
a goal
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Working together with active participation /
involvement.
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How does the practitioner recognise
connectedness?
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Sharing decision making power.
Can shared power and ‘jointness’ really be achieved?
Should we accept an inevitable power imbalance?
If so we need to be able to compensate / redress the
imbalance?
Consider the specific challenges here associated with
safeguarding.
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physical power – for example, a person who
bullies others and intimidates other people
with their words and/or body language
personal power – for example, someone who
has charisma and can ‘win people over’
negative power – for example, someone who
can stop things from happening
expert power – for example, someone who
has professional knowledge or the experience
of being a parent
(Handy Charles B,Understanding organizations, 1993, OUP
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Expertise of practitioner being greater than parent
Parent wants practitioner to provide a solution
Although interactions may be undertaken with care
and respect the practitioner leads and the parent /
young person complies
Does not take account of the importance of the
parent’s or young person’s role knowledge /power /
expertise – undermines their power still further
Not considering the implications for enabling
parents / young people to cope with complex
situations – could encourage dependency.
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It is important to recognise, acknowledge and
manage inequality between the provider and
the service user.
It may be the role of the practitioner to
compensate
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Accepting that these are complementary.
The client / young person will have experiences in a range of
fields, unique to themselves, and so will the practitioner
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Service users have rights to take risks
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Involving parents / young people in identifying
the things that are important to them and
enabling them to be part of the solution.
Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child says that children and
young people have a right to say what they
think about matters that affect them, and a
right to have those views taken
Differences of opinion can be both creative and
destructive
 Conflict arises when there are differences
between people over:
 values
 facts
 priorities
 goals
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(Charles Handy 1993)
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Value accorded to individual input.
How will race, class, religion, culture and
language affect the development of partnership
working?
The practitioner must reflect on discriminatory
and oppressive stereotypes and attitudes and
their effects.
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How much of the practitioner needs to be
revealed to the client / young person?
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Each partner has rights to information
Remember 90 per cent of our communication
is non-verbal
Encouraging people to say how they feel is key
Respect
 Genuineness
 Empathy
 Humility
 Quiet enthusiasm
 Personal strength and integrity
 Intellectual and emotional attunement
 Resilience of professional to absorb the
differential
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Partnership refers to negotiated practice in
which users are active participants engaged
with professionals in deciding on a course of
action.
Each partner has something to contribute with
power shared and roles respected. Such
partnerships are backed by legal and moral
rights.
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Most clients believed that professionals knew best and
wanted access to professional expertise.
They also identified the most effective partnerships
were those resulting from a negotiation between those
with personal experience and those with professional
expertise.
Respect is a consistent theme. This includes clients’
views about how they should be perceived, addressed
and treated, and that indifference, impersonality,
inattentiveness or rudeness all constitute a lack of
respect.
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Baldwin and Sadd, in their discussion of
partnership work between the University of
Bath and the Wiltshire and Swindon Users’
Network, (20) describe how they now use the
word ‘ally’ rather than ‘partner
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The essence of partnership is sharing.
It is marked by respect for one another, role divisions,,
accountability, competence,
Each partner is seen as having something to contribute,
power is shared, decisions are made jointly and roles
are not only respected but are also backed by legal and
moral rights.
(SCIE 2008) (citing Jo Tunnard, 1991)
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Willingness of both parties to engage
How will you manage the complexities of
partnerships with involuntary users?
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Nature of parent / child / young person
problems
Barriers to engagement
Motivation to change
Attitudes and beliefs about services
Expectations of outcome
Socioeconomic circumstances
Culture
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Getting to know the family / young person will
shed light on the pace at which you may need to
work – for example the frequency of the
meetings needed to develop the relationship.
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Rushing the planning
Failing to identify clearly the reasons for working in
partnership (the purpose and goals of the
partnership).The practitioner may need to
repeatedly clarify and promote the key purpose.
Lack of time for those in the partnership to get to
know one another
Not enough time to gain an understanding of each
other’s role and responsibility within the
partnership
A lack of trust
A failure to look at how a partnership is doing and
to measure its achievements (through monitoring
and evaluation)
Reflecting on:
Before the meeting
 How were they / you feeling?
 What were they / you thinking?
During the meeting
 How are they / you feeling?
 What are they / you thinking?
 How are they / you behaving?
After the meeting
 What next?
Concentration/active
listening
Prompting, exploration and summarising
Empathic responding
Enthusing and encouraging
Enabling change in feelings, ideas and actions
Negotiating
Communicating and making use of technical knowledge, expertise and
experience
Problem management
interpersonal communication, including with users and carers with particular
communication needs
advocacy
working in an empowering way
demonstrating respect
using written agreements
critically reflecting on explicit and/or implicit feedback.
resilience
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Establishing and building a relationship
Helping the person explore their current
situation
Helping them formulate a clearer
understanding of situation
Establishing agreed aims and goals
Planning strategies
Supporting parents / young people while the
plans are implemented
Evaluating or reviewing the results
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It is generally accepted that, when you are
supported yourself, you are in a better position
to support others.
Formal Support – line manager / clinical
supervision
Informal support – colleagues / networks /
websites
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Clear partnership goals do not just happen.
They come about through a process of
identifying needs, gathering information
It is essential to maintain a strong sense of the
part you play.
As a general guide, it is helpful to think of your
role as enabling others (family / parents /
young person) to do the work.
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To explore the tacit knowledge / skills of practice we
need to deconstruct the concepts
This entails challenging assumptions, but first those
need to be identified.
It means unpicking the elements and systematically
exploring the characteristics as we experience them.
It involves considering the challenges to achieving
successful practice, but before that we need to be clear
about what successful practice is.
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Think of an example in practice of working in
partnership.
What are the qualities of that relationship?
Is it a good partnership?
Think about your own experience of
partnership working, and the thoughts and
feelings, hopes and fears, you have about it.
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Working in partnership: what do I need to
learn?
What practical skills do I need to develop?
Who’s going to support me?
Preparing for visits
(ContinYou 2005)
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http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf
/w/working%20with%20parents%20in%20par
tnership.pdf
http://www.continyou.org.uk/school/study_su
pport/files/working_in_partnership_to_suppo
rt_families