LINK Partnership Readiness and Planning Tool

Consumer and Community Engagement

LINK Partnership readiness and planning tool

Partnerships

 The Metro North LINK Partnership readiness and planning tool is designed to help you plan your partnership, and ensure that you have addressed or have plans to address any barriers that might emerge.  This tool is based on leading frameworks and evidence around successful partnerships as well as the experience of past LINK partners. You will need to demonstrate in your LINK application package that you are ready to partner and have considered these areas and will have a well- planned project with sufficient time and resources to achieve its goals.  Each partner involved in the initiative should go through the tool, separately, and then come together to compare, and collectively identify areas that will need to be worked through in readiness for collaboration.  Effective collaboration provides a range of efficiencies and benefits but often takes more time, a depth of understanding, trust and relationships.  According to The Collective Impact Framework, three pre-conditions for collective impact are: resources, champions and urgency for change.  The greatest enabler for past LINK projects has been a clear patient-centred focus and drive for improved outcomes for patients. Returning to this purpose has allowed partners to overcome any setbacks or issues, and maintain the urgency for change.  Establishing clear expectations and understanding of each other’s ‘pain points’ has also been highlighted as critically important to successful LINK partnership projects. This requires continual and open communication and flexibility.  In addition to those fundamentals, below are some practical considerations for partnering across boundaries. Large organisations such as Metro North Hospital and Health Service may not be as ‘agile’ as smaller non-government organisations but it has departmental resources to draw upon (legal, communications and so on). There may be different systems in play that need to understood as you map out the landscape that you will be working across: o Data sharing: how will you share information across boundaries, including processes and protocols required to facilitate patient consent, if needed? o Intellectual property: how will you share the results and ownership of the achievements? o Research ethics/ evaluation: do you require research ethics approval? If not, how will you evaluate your initiative and what data do you need to consistently measure, and what do you each currently collect or report? o Human resources: do you need to establish positions and what are the process and lead-in times required for recruitment? o Funding: where will the funding be allocated and what mechanisms need to be considered for invoicing, management and acquittal? o Resources: have you factored in the resources each partner organisation requires or will contribute?

V[Version] Effective: [Effective Date] Review: [Review Date] Partnership planning tool

Indicator of Key considerations How do you know: Describe. partnership What will you need to do to readiness achieve this? If it’s not applicable, why not?

Common Goal and Have you arrived at a shared Purpose understanding of the objectives of the partnership?

Do the partners share common approaches and interests?

Have you clearly and collectively defined the outcomes you want to achieve together, centred on patients/consumers, communities, carers and families?

Does the partnership add value for community and consumers, rather than duplicates or confuses? Giving up ‘turf’ to Is there willingness to share ideas, build alliances influence and power to achieve the goal?

How will you share ownership and recognition of the outcomes?

Do staff cross traditional boundaries between agencies (reaching out and reaching in)?

Do partners have “skin in the game?”: what does each partner contribute in terms of shared resources – time, personnel, material or facilities? Organisational Is there a history of relations between support partners?

Does the partnership add prestige to partners individually as well as collectively?

Is there management support, recognition and reward for partnership and reciprocity?

of 4 Indicator of Key considerations How do you know: Describe. partnership What will you need to do to readiness achieve this? If it’s not applicable, why not?

Planning and Is there diversity and variety of decision-making perspectives and disciplines to ensure comprehensive understanding of issues?

Are partners equally involved in planning and setting priorities for action?

Are there mechanisms to ensure participatory decision-making? Capability Do the partners have necessary skills and commitment to achieve its objectives?

Do the partners have capacity and potential to achieve the objectives?

Is there a clear understanding of roles, responsibilities and expectations?

Are partners responsible for communicating within their own organisations and networks? Enabling systems Are the administrative, communication and decision-making structures as simple and clear?

Is it clear who will be the ‘backbone’ organisation? And who will lead the initiative?

Are there clear lines of communication?

Are there common processes across agencies such as referral protocols, service standards, consent forms, data collection, and reporting mechanisms?

Specific partnership questions: Past LINK project managers have identified a few key areas that may, depending on your project scope, and your organisation, its systems and culture, have an impact on your project and need to be considered. For some of these, it is expected that you will have consulted relevant areas / experts for advice.

Data sharing: how will you share information across boundaries, including processes and protocols required to facilitate patient consent?

of 4 Intellectual property: how will you share the results and ownership of the achievements?

Research ethics/ evaluation: do you require research ethics approval? If not, how will you evaluate your initiative and what data will you need to do so? Please check with Metro North Research Ethics

Human resources: do you need to establish positions and what are the process and lead-in times required for recruitment?

Funding: where will the funding be allocated and what mechanisms need to be considered for invoicing, management and acquittal? For Metro North, please consult with your area’s business manager.

Resources: have you factored in the resources each partner organisation requires or will contribute?

Consumer involvement: How will you involve consumers in the initiative? What additional steps do you need to plan for in the recruitment and engagement of consumers at any point in the project? Please refer to Metro North’s Consumer and Community Engagement team for support and tools.

Below are some additional resources to guide you in the development of your partnership.

 The Collective Impact assessment tools and resources provide greater in-depth analysis and discussion of partnering which may be helpful for longer-term and sustained collaborative work  The Vic Health Partnership analysis and checklist can help you assess your readiness to work together.