The Collaboration Rubric® for Family and Children's Services - A FRAMEWORK FOR PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

The safety and well-being of children and young people is greatly enhanced when their families and communities are supported by strong and collaborative Service Networks. If we aim to put children and young people at the centre of our efforts, Networks should be focused on specific outcomes, and be prepared to think creatively about the partners needed to achieve these outcomes.

Using the Collaboration Rubric® as a guiding framework we have worked with Child Protection, Out of Home Care, Family Law, Youth Justice and Family Support Services to strengthen their shared understanding of the value of their collaboration, identify the resources needed to effectively work together and to increase the support and leadership of influential stakeholders so that the collaboration may be undertaken.

Our work shows that all collaboration begins with a strong foundation of mutual respect and understanding for the work of others in the Network. Considerable effort should be directed to genuinely building this foundation.

Establishing a collaboration baseline for new projects has proven useful in our work. In both the ACT and Victoria, the Rubric® measured improvements across every collaboration indicator in all Networks over relatively short periods.