Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | Page 81

Practice Issues

Dear Social Service Practitioners,
As part of working on the ground, gatherings such as town halls, engagement
sessions and partnership networks are convened in order to learn from the
community and to engage community partners to help individuals and
families. How productive and useful these sessions are depends on the
planning and execution of such efforts. Not unlike the good management
of projects, they begin with understanding the issues and problems that
need to be solved or the purpose that requires the bringing together of
individuals, organisations and groups. There are perhaps several steps that
can guide the structuring, convening and following up of any such efforts.

1. What is the purpose or issue at hand
Issues and problems are part and parcel of living in communities.
How challenges are framed or discussed can hint of the strengths and
opportunities that issues offer in terms of creating positive change. It is
helpful to start where there are common themes in complaints, feedback
and even compliments. One common theme in the social sector is that of
groups working in silos, fragmented or duplication of services and inefficient
processes. While such a theme offers the opportunity for streamlining and
collaboration, it requires a deeper understanding of the specific issues that
are embedded in the theme. It is through distilling the issues that it becomes
clear that there could be a variety of sub-themes with various efforts that
could subtly be working at cross purposes. One example is streamlining
which may offer efficiency but may also take away constituents who are
served by several groups. Other examples include segmentation that can
result in a shift or loss of identity for organisations. So, the sub-themes can
be disparate while the overarching theme may be “building collaboration.”
In the words of some, the devil in collaboration is in the details. So perhaps,
the first good question to ask with any effort in wanting to bring people
together is why we are bringing people together, for what purpose and why
it is necessary to do so.
Spending time to distil the numerous issues will enable planning to focus
on specific problems. This could result in better outcomes than when taking
a collective approach. Some issues, for example, may not lend themselves
to a collective approach and are better addressed by identifying and
entrusting it to the expert authority. The complexity of an issue may or may
not be a good criteria for collective effort. It all depends on the specific
case or situation. A complex case or situation may be better dealt with by
an authority that has access to the knowhow, operational experience and
resources.
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