DAVID WOLFF,

DIRECTOR

Healthy Partnerships

Cupp Aims

“to become recognised as a leading UK universityfor the quality and range of its work in economic and social

engagement and productive partnerships”. Aim 3. Corporate Plan

– Ensure that the University's resources (intellectual and physical) are available to, informed by and used by its local and sub-regional communities

– Enhance the community's and University's capacity for engagement for mutual benefit

– Ensure that Cupp’s resources are prioritised towards addressing inequalities within our local communities

Snapshot November 2010

• Helpdesk - 1000 plus enquiries from community organisations

• 400 plus students annually involved in community projects as part of study

• 150 plus knowledge exchange partnership projects initiated

• Over 120 academics actively involved with Cupp, including a strong cross-institution community researchers group

• A dozen active communities of practice (for example: older people, children and families, lesbian and gay community)

• Structured links with community organisations through co-ownership of governance, co-delivery of projects, co-production of research

• Extensive dissemination: Book, papers, films, conferences

Principles and values of Healthy Partnerships

Aspire to equitable partnerships . Develop joint goals and arrangements with partners in project

governance, delivery, evaluation and dissemination. Establish a shared language – a process not an event requiring

considerable ongoing attention. Consider the needs of marginalised and excluded partners as well as

the mainstream and well resourced. For partnerships to be effective a long term approach is likely to be

required, even if only short term resource can be identified. Complex partners (eg a university, the ‘community’) should not be

treated as if they are homogenous.

Process to support healthy partnerships

Assess the specific strengths and requirements of partners. Be honest about your skills and capacity to respond to what is expected of you. It may be that another organisation is better suited to respond.

Develop appropriate internal infrastructures to support the partnership. This should include project development, support and communications.

Develop networks or communities of practice that can sustain partnerships, if appropriate, beyond an initial phase.

Develop an evaluation framework as early as you can. Decide what you are going to measure and how. Consider leaning on any benchmarks and approaches developed by others rather than inventing your own

Practical tips

The closer partnerships fit with core interests and mission the better. Prioritise working with people who want to work with you and put

energy into addressing barriers to their participation. Concentrate on beneficiaries of the work and develop communities of

practice to link those involved. Emphasise getting on and doing things, rather than organisational

form or structure. Partners may need to be persuaded of the value and potential of

partnership working. High quality ongoing communications will be needed to keep the value of the work to the fore, and to share how much progress is being made

Practical tips

Find creative ways around bureaucratic processes – partnership working probably won’t fit standard procedures. This can be stressful and difficult – culture change requires a bold heart! When we’ve found ourselves needing to be brave and do things outside certain bureaucratic structures the adage ‘Don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness’, has been useful.

Develop the ability of staff to communicate and build relationships with diverse partners - explore integration into staff development programmes.

Secure funds to resource partnership development. This helps to bust through the ‘interested but too busy’ syndrome.

Don’t let definitional problems stop you in your tracks - think about defining it in the doing

Use brokers who can work across different cultures. So called ‘boundary spanners’ can be very useful.

Cupp network on the web www.cuppcop.ning.com

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