Leaders are failing. We don’t train people to run multiple relationships. We train people to be competitive & continue silo working. Too many leaders take the short term credit of ‘wins’ for their organisation rather then the collective gains that come through working together.

Partnership working & collaboration is seen as too hard.Everyone comes to the table with their own ideas & reaching a workable compromise takes too much time and skills. We talk about partnership working but shifting this from conversation to reality needs more work.

Pre-Covid-19, arguments for a greater pooling of staff and resources across charities, was often met with surprise and a response of ‘Why would we do that?’.

This crisis has changed our normal behaviours. We have seen greater collaboration between teams – more fast based decisions, bringing together specialist skills from different teams, moving staff online, supporting people in new and innovative ways.

We have also collaboration between charities, often for the first time. We are sharing ideas, information, practice and pooling resources. We are learning so much.

We have a responsibility to share it with others. We need to work together and form partnerships at different levels if we want to provide a truly joined up approach to the individuals we support.

We can be so much stronger together when we actively seek opportunities to work with each other. We can have a greater impact and ultimately provide better services to the people we support. Why wouldn’t we do that?