Working together

Voluntary and community organisations have a long history of providing services to some of the most vulnerable individuals in society. This has often been possible as organisations work hard to engage with the communities they support and to deliver a service which suits their needs.

As times have changed, the demands placed on Supporting People providers have become increasingly complex. This is at a time when the demands for funding are also increasing. The key question facing many providers today is how to continue to deliver and develop a quality service, while meeting the demands of a complex funding environment.

The policy agenda is promoting the use of collaboration as a useful tool to assist voluntary and community organisations to face these current demands.

NICVA has been commissioned by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's Supporting People team to analyse the issue of collaboration. The project will last one year and includes a variety of different methods designed to examine the potential for collaboration. The first stage is to survey all service providers to examine attitudes towards collaboration, different forms of collaboration, barriers to engaging in collaborative working, what support, if any, providers would need to engage in more collaborative working and finally to examine if this is an appropriate tool.

Following the survey, a series of interviews will be conducted with service providers in each of the five areas covered by Supporting People. The timetable for these interviews is as follows:

West - June-July 2009
South - September-October 2009
South east and north east - November-December 2009
Belfast - January-February 2010

It is proposed that a series of recommendations regarding the potential for future collaborative models of working (both at an area based level and a regional level) will be made. These recommendations will be based on the detailed assessments carried out during the survey and interview stages of the project. In addition to any recommendations with regard to future collaborations a detailed assessment of the support and development needs required to underpin these recommendations will also be presented.

If you are a Supporting People service provider and you would like more information on this project or you are interested in any of the research NICVA carries out please contact either Andrea Thornbury or Leeann Kelly

Background on Supporting People

The SP programme currently funds 118 organisations providing housing support in over 900 schemes, both accommodation and floating support services. These schemes provide services to more than 23,000 vulnerable people per annum.

Supporting People and NICVA

SP has an Innovation and Capacity Programme which seeks to support voluntary and community organisations adapt to change. To this end NICVA has been engaged with SP under this programme for the past three years during which time 28 organisations have undergone a training and organisational development analysis. Subsequently the SP have met with all of the providers involved in the programme to consider each organisation's training and organisational developmental issues.