Community Learning Development Resource 302-08
CO-WORKING RELATIONSHIPS – A REFLECTIVE COMMENTARY FROM COMMUNITY LEARNING WORKERS
SUMMARY
Understanding partnership arrangements in relation to our own organisation and practice helps us to develop effective co-working with other workers and agencies. This resource (302-08) records discussion points from a workshop with a Community Learning team, working in targeted deprived neighbourhoods, to build individual and collective capacity through informal learning opportunities.
Discussion points (concerns and issues):
- In developing co-working arrangements, the values and principles that underpin and inform our work with learners in the community, must be held and not compromised
- The best common framework for developing working relationships is one that keeps the learners and their learning needs at its heart
- The depth of the co-working relationship is determined by its efficiency and effectiveness in relation to the work purpose and delivering successful community learning outcomes and benefits
- The demands of increased co-working must not compromise the effectiveness of the delivery of community learning work outputs and outcomes
- The depth of co-working relationship may be maintained at any appropriate level on the continuum model (CLD Resource 302-05) and is not a requirement to progress to full incorporation
- Our co-working partners need to recognise that our community learning work is broad in the sense of approach and outcome but narrow in terms of focussing on and targeting particular learners in neighbourhoods and communities
- There is balance to be maintained within any co-working relationship between the contributions and demands placed on a partner
- Co-working relationships need to be evaluated against what is being achieved through them in relation to the work purposes the delivery of successful outcomes, which may be different for individual partners
- Increasing co-working structural and cultural links increases the organisational complexity within partner agencies
- Does the number of manageable co-working relationships, relate directly to the demands and degrees of difficulty of communication and information sharing?
- The energy requirements of developing and maintaining co-working arrangements are demands on our agency worker resource, which may affect the capacity available to deliver community learning work with local people
- Co-working may be difficult if the partner situations are incongruent, competitive or unconnected – co-working needs to make sense for us as workers, our agencies and for our clients
- Should the nature and success of our co-working at any point in the development of the work be a key strand of our ongoing monitoring, evaluation and review?
- Whilst partnership might be perceived to be the effective strategic way forward at Local Authority level, there needs to be thought given to how co-working operates at community and neighbourhood levels and at the work interface!
- Barriers and constraints need to be identified and reviewed as co-working develops.
DEVELOPING A CO-WORKING RELATIONSHIP – OUR SHORT GUIDE (from the Learning in the Community team):
- What is the purpose, what is to be gained, what might be the impact and benefits for our learners (clients/neighbourhood/community)?
- Who is the working relationship with – who needs to be part of it?
- What needs to be done to set-up the arrangement?
- Will others need to be connected with the arrangement?
- How will it operate, and be maintained and managed?
- How should we evidence and review the co-working experience?