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Level 2 - Working In Partnership What are the barriers to partnership and how do we overcome them? There has been a lot of work done within health and social care to identify the barriers to partnership working. Crawford and Peck (Mental Health Review, 2002) identify some barriers to partnership working including:
- Reluctance or inability to share information about people on the grounds of confidentiality
- Poor inter-agency working stemming from role/boundary conflicts and lack of recognition
- Unrealistic expectations of partner agencies e.g. the extent to which housing workers can support people with mental health problems; and a lack of understanding of each other's roles, cultures and language
- Inter-disciplinary tensions epitomised by differences between the so-called 'medical model' and the social model of disability
- Concern over funding often shown in a reluctance to share budgets
- Perhaps most importantly - a lack of mutual trust.
However it is worth thinking in more depth about what some of the barriers are that relate specifically to successful partnership working through Learning Disability Partnership Boards. These barriers and possible ways forward might include:
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1. Health and social care are seen as the main agencies providing learning disability services and therefore other agencies and local authority departments feel they need not get involved with the work of the Learning Disability Partnership Board Tailoring the programme and style of Board meetings to reflect the interests of those you are trying to involve might help. For example, hold a big meeting with workshops on different
topics. 2. Getting people to help carry out the work of the Board can be a problem - there is no one who can lead on pieces of work Building project management capacity into the system has been shown in other arenas to contribute to the success of partnership working. Showing other organisations how Valuing People relates to their aims may persuade them to lead on some pieces of work. 3. Partnership Boards can cover large geographical and
rural areas; how can we make sure their local communities are included? Developing a 'travelling subgroup' whose job it is to travel around the area might help engage people with learning disabilities and family carers in the business of the Partnership Board. Links could also be made with District Councils. 4. In some areas getting the Chief Executive of the local authority engaged with the work of the Board may be very difficult It should
be the responsibility of other senior local authority officers to draw the Learning Disability Partnership Board to the attention of not only the Chief Executive but also the finance, human resources and other functions within the Local Authority, and to reinforce their responsibilities under Government policy. If this proves difficult, then look for allies who might help - the Head of Policy in the Chief Executive's Department has already been mentioned as a key
post. Show how the Valuing People agenda connects with other corporate priorities. 5. Keeping person centred planning central to the work of the Board has been a concern for some localities who are concerned that PCP will become another paper exercise Perhaps having a focus on people's life stories might assist here. Each Board meeting could include at least one session that focuses on a particular "life incident" or story from someone with a
learning disability or a family carer. Quality strategies should focus on outcomes and Boards could ask for regular reports. Progress reports from the Board could express achievements in terms of changes in people's lives. 6. Getting mainstream services to improve access for people with learning disabilities and keeping learning disability as a priority on other's agendas can be hard work Research into the development of Health Action Zones
highlighted the importance of local champions as a way of mainstreaming issues and services. Identifying and networking with "learning disability champions" in services such as Leisure, Connexions and so on may be helpful. Show how improving access for people with learning disabilities can help them deliver their priorities. Support people with learning disabilities to speak up directly to councillors and services 7. Some large county areas have found it
difficult to persuade and help many people with learning disabilities and family carers to attend meetings in a central location. Some counties have set up locality groups for family carers so that they can meet and discuss issues locally and then send representatives to the Board. Elsewhere the main business of the Board is being conducted at locality (most likely District Council) level.  |
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Level 3 Level 3 gives you more resources and help |
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