actcoss text final.indd - ACT Council of Social Service

to effective collaboration include: poor interpersonal
relationships between management
staff, a sense that there is organisational ‘turf’
to be defended, efforts to expand a ‘domain’,
‘professional defensiveness’, ‘status differences’,
major resource disparities and policy disagreement. 39
Each relationship between community mental
health services and different parts of the sector
varies, raising particular challenges. Consultation
responses on the issue of inter-sectoral collaboration
varied depending on the relevant service area,
organisational structure and philosophy and the
personal relationships existing between management
and frontline staff.
Finally, research on partnerships and collaboration
generally stresses that not all partnerships should
move to collaboration. 40 Effective partnerships
require high levels of trust, a continuing commitment
to collaboration, the human and financial resources
to support collaboration at all organisational levels
and a well-integrated internal organisational
structure that is conducive to collaboration.
Reflecting these criteria, the ACT Community
Facilities Needs Assessment found that increased
resource sharing was likely to work best where
organisations have similar structures or functions and
are co-located.
There is considerable debate about the possible role
that government can and should play in facilitating
community sector collaboration. Some organisations
expressed the view that a requirement to collaborate
should be included in government funding contracts.
The alternative view is that government should
facilitate and support collaboration, without
forcing it. Emerging research on partnerships and
collaboration indicates that collaboration works best
when voluntary and where there is a pre-existing
relationship between organisations. This is supported
by the ACT Community Facilities Needs Assessment
report conclusion that collaborations work best
where they are voluntary or self-initiated, rather
than coerced. 41 This report highlighted the need
for community organisations to be resourced to
collaborate. 42
The concept of collaboration is central to this paper.
Having established the meaning, forms, benefits
and challenges of collaboration, this paper seeks
to determine the extent to which collaborative
approaches to mental health service delivery have
developed in the ACT. In doing so, the paper analyses
cooperative initiatives and projects currently being
undertaken in the ACT though an examination of
relationships between different parts of the service
system. It concludes that, although existing initiatives
represent a promising starting point, it remains true
to say that cooperation is proceeding in an ad hoc
rather than systemic fashion. This paper therefore
identifies priority areas in which collaboration can be
improved between parts of the system. In addition,
it identifies ways in which government can facilitate
collaborative activity though appropriate support.
In doing so, it is hoped that this paper might assist
in the development of a more integrated service
system with improved outcomes for mental health
consumers and the community.
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39 Dr Rae Walker, Collaboration and Alliances: A Review for Vichealth, September 2000, published by Victorian Health Promotion Foundation at 11.
40 See, for example, VicHealth, The Partnerships Analysis Tool: For Partners in Health Promotion accessed at http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/assets/contentFiles/
VHP%20part.%20tool_low%20res.pdf. Also see Dr Rae Walker, Collaboration and Alliances: A Review for Vichealth, September 2000.
41 Ibid.
42 Stage 1 and 2 of the Community Facilities Needs Assessment
[PALM (2003)] ACT Community Facilities Needs Assessment (Central Canberra, Belconnen and
Gungahlin) at 24 and ACTPLA (2004) Community Facilities Needs Assessment: Report for Stage 2 at 35.
15 Towards an integrated mental health service system in the ACT•June 2007 NO WRONG DOORS