Click here to download 'Partnership & Community Networks' PDF

Partnerships and Community Networks help to connect organisations with their communities and assist them to create opportunities for the people they support.

Relationship Building

What is Partnership?

How can Partnership be achieved?

What might Partnership look like?

A continuum for self- evaluation

Developing Effective Practice: Breaking Down the Barriers

Developing Effective Practice: Building Partnerships with the Community

Relationship Building

There are some key relationships that are important in order to build partnerships and community networks. Organisations need to have:

• a strong commitment to building trusting relationships with the people at the heart of the service i.e. the individuals accessing the service

• relationships with family/whanau, friends, advocates, work colleagues and acquaintances (potential natural supports)

• contacts with members of the local community. This relationship works best when it is reciprocal.

• mutual understanding with funders and allied service providers.

back to the top

What is Partnership?

Partnership can be described as the willingness of two or more people/groups to work together to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome(s). It requires:

• a willingness and commitment to share knowledge, understanding and resources (both material and personal)

• equality.

back to the top

How can Partnership be achieved?

1. Developing Self-knowledge – What do you know about your own process in developing partnerships?

What is needed to feel positive about developing a partnership?

• Shared values

• Shared goals

• Mutual benefits

• Trust

What do you and/or the agency bring to the partnership?

• Energy

• A point of view

• A range of personal experiences

• Expertise in some areas

• Willingness/commitment

• Assets/Resources

2. Working collaboratively – how does this translate into actions?

• Creating opportunities for meaningful connections

• Focus on “reciprocity” = sharing = give and take

• Empower disabled people to contribute by sharing responsibilities, decisions, planning and more.

3. Getting to know your community – networking

Identify barriers to community participation and implement ways to overcome these

• Physical access

• Lack of knowledge

• Overkill (too many disabled people on one site)

• One-way expectations

Get to know your community – not just the disability sector

• Allocate TIME to find out what is happening via internet, phone book and visits

• Utilise community databases e.g. library, community centres, etc.

• Develop a ‘staff & service user” matrix (related to identifying interest/hobbies/activities)

Identify community activities and networks that support goals identified in personal plans

• Requires scrutiny and use of personal plans

• Matchmaking of aspirations and community networks

• Nurturing sustainable relationships and supports

Identify and promote ways the service can be a community resource

• Sharing of assets and resources with community - eg meeting place, use of computers, invitation/inclusion of any on-site education
  

• Hosting events that promote community development

• Participating in community boards, local government, community garden schemes, etc

back to the top

What might Partnership look like?

For the individual

• A range of learning opportunities is provided to enable development of choice-making and decision making at a range of levels.

• Individuals are consulted in meaningful ways to ensure their views are shared and utilised.

• Individuals are respected as partners.

For family/whanau

• Families/whanau are listened to.

• Families/whanau see their ideas and concerns actioned.

For the service provider

• Individuals are supported to make choices in their daily life.

• Consultation is a normal practice.

• Service providers value and act on the importance of social and personal relationships.

For the community

• Cooperation is a way of developing support.

• Crisis & respite needs diminish.

• Services support and contribute to the community not just the disability sector.

• Communities become more ‘enabling’.

back to the top

A continuum for self- evaluation

back to the top

Developing Effective Practice: Breaking Down the Barriers

Accessing the community in large groups can:

· Be intimidating for other members of the community

· Look like a ‘takeover’ of an activity

· Prevent people from participating fully or making connections with people outside the service

· Reinforce or create negative stereotypes of people with disabilities

How do you create change?

• Support people to access the community in small groups (three or less). See also Resource Allocation.

• Develop reciprocal relationships with the community. Give people the opportunity to ‘give back’ and not just be passive recipients of the community.

Examples of ‘giving back’:

• Tahi Trust provides a milk delivery service for elderly people in their community. Twice a week three people from the service get the milk from the supermarket and deliver it to the homes.

• Rua Trust takes parts in as many local events as possible, e.g. working bees, assisting elderly people, mowing lawns for the local marae and parks, gardening, etc. The service and its people are well known and well-supported as a result.

• Toru Trust volunteers to do Meals on Wheels. The service provides the transport only. The volunteers deliver the meals to the same people each week, and have built up friendships with some of the people they serve.

• Wha Trust has a cricket team, made up of staff and service users. They compete in a regular corporate competition and take part in social events with other teams.

Create the conditions and situations where people are more likely to be accepted.

• Prepare and plan carefully – talk to organisers before people take part in an activity, let them know why people want to be part of it and give them strategies for engaging with the person. This helps to ensure that people will be made to feel welcome, and their involvement will be sustainable.

back to the top

Developing Effective Practice: Building Partnerships with the Community

• Be clear about your vision and purpose, and what you bring to the table.
  

• Engage with people and community organisations, and constantly look for opportunities and mutual benefits. Staff need to be professional, pro-active and motivated.
  

• Sell the benefits to potential partner organisations.
  

• Be clear about outcomes.
  

• Take time to build relationships and processes.
  

• Have clear channels of communication - ensure they have someone to come back to if there are issues.
  

• Maintain the relationship, and be aware that everyone in the organisation is responsible for maintaining it.

back to the top