Co-creating with partners

Depending on the size or scale of the partners involved in the early ideation and authorising aspect, progressing from concept to design may require broadening the partnership and engaging new parties in the vision and concepts for the Schools as Community Platforms project. As initiatives grow and scale, the high-level shared vision needs to be translated into agendas for shared action. These agendas for shared action are required at every level and help to underpin progress and momentum. Shared agenda setting requires uniquely skilled individuals who can support and enrol partners in action, without ‘being in charge.

Effective co-design needs a framework that allows partners to actively participate, test assumptions and explore innovative solutions. Having regular checkpoints for feedback and reflection to ensures that all partners have an opportunity to contribute their insights and expertise and shared ownership of the work.  

It is important in commencing the partnership that there is a shared understanding of the boundaries, expectations of partners in the design process by defining the scope, responsibilities, and decision-making authority of partners. Aligning expectations amongst partners regarding shared outcomes, contributions, timelines, and deliverables needs to be adaptive and will lay foundations for effective collaboration in the longer term.

The commitment to a shared vision can help 'hold steady' when times are tough. As the concept of Schools as Community Platforms moves into implementation, it is important to ensure that this shared vision is translated to be locally relevant and powerful as well.   

Implementing Schools as Community Platforms involves working across various sectors that have different cultural norms and practices. While the realisation of a Community School may be the consuming passion for some partners in the group, it may be one of a dozen projects for others.  Investing in building trusted relationships, fostering open dialogue and cultural exchange to appreciate diverse perspectives and approaches enhances mutual understanding and leverage the unique strengths that each partner brings to the co-design process. 

Our Experience/Learning

Engage stakeholders early around both the opportunity and what integrated infrastructure and service delivery might mean for them.  Recognise and respect the good work that is already in place in the area. There may be a need to work through entrenched behaviours and practices and emotional investment in the current systems to build the level of trust and respect needed to explore different ways of working. 

Consider establishing site-wide guiding principles or a practice framework, with a balance of tight and loose elements, to provide a flexible structure that accommodates local nuances (loose), while maintaining consistency and alignment with overarching goals (tight), ensuring a unified approach and coherent implementation across diverse service partners.

The shared vision and agreed outcomes in the theory of change provide a starting point for the co-creation framework and parameters. Planning and decisions about specific priorities and actions is part of early implementation. In the pre implementation phase however core partners need to agree on how the work is described and introduced to their own teams and stakeholders in the community, there is also a need for understanding of the overall path that implementation is intended to take.

The transition from ideation and gaining authorisation to designing and planning for implementing has often meant a change in key contacts within core partners. We have observed the risk of assuming that a new partner representative has been well briefed or has the same engagement with the vision that their previous contact had. Proactively managing disruptions helps to sustain the co-design process and keep it on track towards achieving the desired outcomes. 

In the pre implementation phase both Our Place and FamilyLinQ worked with their core partners to develop a high-level description of the work and the intended implementation process as part of the initial agreement. This formed the framework and parameters for developing localised approaches to implementation. See – More information for examples of the type of high-level framework that could be used in the getting ready to start phase.

It was important to recognise the need to create a mechanism for addressing questions of interpretation of the project or disagreement at the local level as not everything could be determined at the outset. In most locations an operations working groups was established in addition to the overall governance group (Site partnership group). Issues that need escalation have a mechanism of resolution through the governance structure.