Building Capacity in Children's Services: Partnership-making 101
During the past decade, many child serving agencies have partnered to build capacity within the sector. This activity is largely based on good will with limited attention to the responsibilities, accountabilities and liabilities of each relationship. The importance of inter-organizational connections is regularly documented in strategic and business plans and organizational value statements. Funding is increasingly contingent on coming to the table with your partners. As a result, countless complicated relationships are created and many scarce resources are devoted to partnership-making. Along with this trend toward partnering is the underlying assumption that partnering will contribute to providing seamless service delivery, demonstrate fiscal responsibility and lead to a reduction of program duplication. However, do partnerships really build capacity in the delivery system, lead to more efficient operations and contribute to better outcomes for children?
Most of the literature on partnerships is descriptive in nature. There are reports describing what it takes to create a partnership, the importance of leadership, the lessons learned about success and failure. A smaller collection is prescriptive and offers guidelines and frameworks for partnership creation. However, there are very few studies to guide best practices or offer a conceptual foundation upon which to negotiate and build partnerships.
Using a case study approach, this two-year federally funded research project investigated how partnerships are created, maintained and perceived by stakeholders to better understand the experience of partnering and to conceptualize the partnership process. Lincoln and Guba's (1985) case study format outlining the problem, context, issues and lessons learned was applied and the qualitative software tool AtlasTI was used to aid data analysis. The findings show that partnership-making is difficult, sometimes unsuccessful, and always complex. By outlining the procedures best followed, the challenges to be negotiated, and reasons for success and sustainability, the study contributes to the capacity building impact of partnerships in children's services.