Supporting and enabling collaboration in Dudley borough
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Open Hub Wrens Nest newspapers[/caption]
In response to support needs and priorities expressed by local voluntary organisations, community groups and social enterprises, Dudley CVS has made supporting and enabling collaboration a priority.
A group of Dudley CVS Trustees and staff are meeting to shape what this will mean in practice. Having offered to join the group working on this I started thinking about previous activity I’ve been involved in to support and enable collaboration in the borough. I’ve posted a summary of these below and invite you to add yours. I also suggested a few simple things the group could use to support and improve our own collaborative practices, which I’ll share in a blog post on Monday.
Action research with community-based groups in 2011–2012
Between April 2011 and April 2012, over 150 individuals from communities, groups and organisations in Dudley borough took part in an action research project. The aim of the project was to enable community groups, particularly those who have traditionally lacked power, to take advantage of the new opportunities being created through new community rights being introduced by the government. The research highlighted that there was more of appetite for working together on services with the council and others than there was in taking up community rights. The full project archive is available here.
Collaborative projects developed in 2012–2013
Following the action research project above effort was made to respond to the findings by creating a number of collaborative projects in relations to the themes which emerged from the research. Reports from activity and further research in 2012 are online here, including lots of feedback from conversations exploring the question ‘what is collaboration?’
Building Health Partnerships 2013–2014
Dudley CVS and Dudley CCG were one of 12 successful applicants to the national Building Health Partnerships learning programme running in 2013–14. The programme was designed to improve collaboration between clinical commissioning groups and local voluntary and community organisations and social enterprises. The notable outcome of Building Health Partnerships in Dudley was the take up and development of PSIAMS, a way of working and related tools which support a focus on outcomes and facilitates collaboration between local services.
Supporting new ways of collaborating in neighbourhoods 2014–2015
Stimulation of new types of activities which enable citizens and professionals to collaborate in transforming neighbourhoods. We have been using stories which inspire, tools which help people to surface existing assets and resources, and co-design processes which facilitate ideas testing and rapid project implementation. East Coseley Big Local and Open Hub Wrens Nest have been experimenting with these approaches over the last 12 months.
What have you been involved to support collaboration in Dudley borough which could be added to the above list?
Leave a comment, send us a link on twitter (@colabdudley) or get in touch to be added as a contributor to this blog (our email address is colabdudley@gmail.com)
