Case Studies and Resources

1.3. Coordination Case Study (2): Creating a network to achieve better integration

This case involves a network formed to achieve better integration of the work of local social service agencies. The formation of the network arose from top-down government policy and funding pressures to coordinate existing services to improve service delivery outcomes, although the formative documentation and rhetoric was shaped on notions of collaboration.

In this network, however, “far from being pushed into a new form by government funding,” participating agencies indicated that they were motivated to do this “because it was the right thing for our clients and our agencies”. A suite of linkage mechanisms were instituted to facilitate closer working relationships between agencies, including case management procedures and workshops in which a set of agreed mechanisms were developed to guide the interactions between participants and build commitment to the network.

Through these workshops and other network building devices members developed stronger interpersonal relations to support and encourage the thinking and behavioural changes they were making. Importantly, these changes in practice led to members becoming more committed to working with each other and to the agreed network goals. Despite the push for a collaborative model it was acknowledged that apart from small pockets of collaboration, “the network was probably more coordinative … lacking the member commitment and purpose to be fully collaborative”. Nonetheless, due to the combination of network members’ identification with the goals, their commitment to the network and each other, and coordinative network routines and practices they developed a number of service enhancements that led to more effective cross-agency projects.

Importantly, members noted that the rhetoric for collaboration, and the strong policy and funding push for collaboration presented a challenge to their early efforts at working together.  It required several workshops and group sessions to come to the realisation that they did not have the strength of relationships necessary to collaborate at the beginning:

We tried to bring agencies together in a closer way, but people were just not there, they were not in the space necessary for that type of commitment. Early on we were only able to meet and share information. So we had a meeting and decided to spend some time building relationships, decide what we really want to achieve, before we try to go further.

As a result, the goal of coordination became the focus of much of the ongoing work, with core members eventually attaining the strength of relationship and shared commitment to engage in the occasional collaborative endeavour.