Lottie Turner is an accredited partnership broker with the international Partnership Brokers Association, and has been leading Health Justice Australia’s work to build the partnering capability of health justice partnerships.
For a couple of years now Health Justice Australia has been working with a handful of health justice partnerships (HJPs) to either build a partnership model from the ground up, or review and refine an existing partnership approach. We call this work ‘partnership brokerage’. We’ve learnt many things through this work, but one of the standouts for me is how important intentional, regular, clear and agreed communication processes are for keeping a partnership on track.
Our latest partnership brokerage work
Our most recent partnership brokerage activity has been thanks to funding received from the Victorian Legal Services Board Grants Program. This has seen us work closely with three Victorian HJPs to determine the extent to which their current partnership approach is helping them achieve what they set out to; explore what a more integrated partnership approach might offer them; and if necessary, support the process of refining their model to reflect more of the features of purpose-driven partnership.
All of these partnerships have long-standing relationships that have been built and sustained over time (for some, more than 20 years). But whether the relationships have been invested in for 5 years or 25 years, one thing has been consistent across all: without intentional, agreed, regular and clear communication processes in place, the partnership can really struggle to maintain momentum and achieve shared goals.
The importance of effective communication
These challenges are not unique to HJPs. International work led by initiatives like the Partnership Brokers Association and the PEP Facility consistently points to communication as both a key challenge and opportunity for cross-sector partnering initiatives.
Some of the classic communication challenges that come up across HJPs include:
- missed opportunities to co-create a model that meets the expectations, drivers and needs of all partners, which can lead to low levels of buy-in and one partner carrying the load;
- unclear roles and responsibilities, particularly as they relate to decision making and accountability;
- assumptions regarding partner understanding of sector or discipline specific jargon and process; and
- reliance on individual champions, and the loss of corporate knowledge that occurs when those champions move on.
With this in mind, some of the processes we’ll be focussing on over the coming months with the Victorian HJPs include:
- building or refining effective and efficient decision making and accountability mechanisms (including through collaborative governance);
- building a shared understanding of roles and responsibilities;
- reaching agreement on how each HJP will manage inevitable change (for example, through funding uncertainty, loss of key personnel, and changes to partner organisation priorities and resources); and
- co-creating processes designed to make clear the ‘what, when, who, and how’ of communication across the HJP (from troubleshooting referral processes, to the sign-off of co-branded collateral).
When we say building and maintaining effective partnership approaches takes sustained investment over time, communication is one of the key areas we’re referring to. Effective collaboration takes working in intentional, purpose-driven partnership; and working effectively in partnership takes good communication.
We’ll continue to share the lessons of this work back with you via blog posts, new resources and tools and our quarterly HJP Conversations (an online technical assistance program delivered via videoconference). In the meantime, if you have any curly partnering questions or would like to find out more about how Health Justice Australia can work with your HJP, contact Lottie.Turner@healthjustice.org.au.
