Effective Partnership Working: What capabilities are needed to create and sustain partnership?

About the event

Effective partnership working is not easy; it takes time, effort and skill to not just develop but to also to sustain them. Partnerships reflect a complex set of relationships at both the individual and organisational level that have the potential to positively influence policy and practice or to negatively decline into recriminations or paralysis. But what makes a partnership successful? What are the key capabilities required for effective partnership working? This interactive workshop provides an opportunity to explore these questions.

The aim of the workshop is to identify the key capabilities – and by that we mean the skills, judgements and behaviours that support collaborative working – that underpin partnership working, whether that be multi-agency partnerships, inter-agency working or academic-practitioner partnerships to name but a few.

We have an exciting opportunity at this workshop to hear and learn from international comparisons as well as home-grown experience. Professor Deborah Blackman is in the UK visiting from Australia (where she is Head of the School of Business and a member of the Public Service Research Group at the University of South Wales Canberra) so we are delighted to have this opportunity to have a session with her, along with insights from the UK – Professor Jean Hartley, Dr Nicky Miller and Justin Partridge.

Deborah’s research focuses on public service management, in particular systems level implementation. Professor Blackman’s academic background is in a range of management and administration related fields: human resource management; organisational learning; knowledge management; training and development; and managing change and organisational behaviour. The common theme of her work is about improving knowledge transfer to increase organizational effectiveness in a range of applied, real-world contexts. She has a vast amount of knowledge and experience to share with us in the area of partnership working.

There will also be the opportunity to hear about other practical examples of partnership working that will demonstrate key learning points throughout the workshop. Professor Jean Hartley and Dr Nicky Miller will explore what underpins effective academic-practitioner partnerships and Justin Partridge will discuss collaboration between emergency services, drawing on both his professional experience in policing and his own academic research.

You will have the opportunity to consider your own approach to collaborative working, bringing your thoughts and experiences about what skills and behaviours are important and your ideas as to how they might be developed in the workplace. You will be encouraged to bring along thoughts about practical examples to share with the group.

Audience

This invitation is to Centre for Policing Research and Learning member police forces, as well as academics across The Open University interested in partnership working and related collaborative governance issues and those with an interest and/or experience in this area. Participants of the workshop will be able to apply the lessons learnt to any partnership.  

Workshop schedule

10:00 Registration and Refreshments

10:30 Interactive Exercise – what are indicators of a successful (or unsuccessful) partnership?

11:00 Collaboration cannot be cosy – Professor Debbie Blackman

11.45 Understanding partnership working – Professor Jean Hartley and Dr Nicky Miller

12:30 Lunch and networking

13:15 Case Study – Justin Partridge

14:00 Discussion and Exercise

15:00 Next steps

15:30 Departure

Logistics and Practicalities

The workshop is free to attend. However if you decide to take up a place we ask that you honour that commitment and do not cancel at short notice. We understand that police may have operational constraints on the day, but please make every effort to attend or to find a replacement for your place, so that the workshop organizers are not inconvenienced. Refreshments will be provided but participants will be expected to pay for lunch at their own cost. The workshop will take place at the Open University Campus at Walton Hall.