One benefit of working in partnership is the opportunity to swap tailored training with partner organisations. It’s important to get this right – not only does successful cross-training lead to better understanding of each other’s work, it also builds trust and supports future cooperation.
Where do we start?
The first thing to do is consider, do you have buy-in to the training and the topic from the people you’re working with? Start with talking to your partner about what their needs are – in terms of content, as well as style and mode of delivery.
For legal partners, you may need to check your expectations of what’s possible in the delivery of training in a health environment. For example, it may be that the only “training time” currently available is 10 minutes at the start of the health team’s meeting. Being aware of this means you can work together with your health partners to build further opportunities into the future in a way that takes their day-to-day work life into account.
We also encourage training to go both ways; not only health practitioners learning from legal partners, but also legal practitioners learning from their health partners. It’s one of the many great benefits of partnership, because there’s always something to learn about from the knowledge and skills of different partners (remember: you’re working in partnership because you alone don’t have all the answers!).
What do we need to know?
Talk to your partners about the goal of the training and be open to their advice on the education strategies that will be of most benefit to their people. Find out:
- What is your partner’s capabilitfuy building need? Is training the best tool to use in response to that need? Does your partner see the value?
- Do people need written resources, or in-person training and explanations?
- Is it a case of creating and understanding processes, or is it about building substantive knowledge about a topic? Or is it simply to introduce yourself and explain the help that you can provide?
See the Building Blocks resource for more, particularly from p6 onwards (identifying needs and gaps) and p18 (agreeing what you’ll do together).
If you need more support, please email partnerships@healthjustice.org.au.
