Support Pathway
CollaborationNI designs bespoke ‘support pathways’ for its clients. Elements of support are not a menu, but rather the stepping stones of the ‘support pathway’ we design and travel along with you.
The first step is completion of the online Expression of Interest.
Follow Up Support
Implementing collaborative working can bring unexpected challenges. CollaborationNI may be able to offer follow up support to groups we have supported previously.
Action Planning
We’ll meet with members of your collaboration to find out more about your project, and what you want to achieve. During this session we create a bespoke ‘Action Plan’ to outline the supports we recommend and can deliver to help you reach your desired outcomes.
For many clients this planning process highlights a need for:
- Increased knowledge of what collaboration is and what is needed to make it work
- Improved understanding of the processes and challenges involved in collaborative working
- Assistance creating strategies to progress collaborative objectives
- Improved capacity to implement and manage change
To address these needs CollaborationNI can deliver bespoke sessions to clients on a range of topics
Facilitation
The aim of Facilitation is to engage with boards and executive teams to help them think through the collaborative working process and the related planning issues from a collective perspective.
Expert facilitation helps the collaboration ‘reach the next stage’ by supporting clients to:
- agree a deeper commitment to a collaborative arrangement
- resolve stumbling blocks
- review or re-focus their work
Experience shows us that our clients often require facilitation on difficult issues relating to collaboration like:
- integrating and redesigning strategies
- planning for shared services
- working for cooperation, coordination or integration at service levels
Legal Support
CollaborationNI provides legal support across the collaborative spectrum – from the formation of informal alliances to the building of consortia, to mergers and takeovers. Legal support from CollaborationNI is always tailored to the individual circumstances of the collaboration.
The legal support provided by CollaborationNI can best be described as transactional – the aim is not to simply produce legal documents, but to move organisations through a process of change.
At its most basic this involves:
- working out where the organisations are now
- agreeing where they want to get to
- agreeing how to get there and how we can help them
Legal support may include:
- consultation sessions
- help choosing the most appropriate legal structure for your collaboration
- support negotiating and drafting legal agreements
Collaborations underpinned by a written agreement are more likely to succeed.
CollaborationNI can support your collaboration to develop a written agreement tailored to the specific needs and circumstances of the organisations involved.
Events
CollaborationNI hosts events to promote debate and encourage collaborative working. These are open to anyone from the VCSE sector interested in collaboration, or to those from other sectors working with VCSE organisations.
Events are an integrated part of our Support Pathway; we draw on the experience of clients in the form of best practice and case study presentations.
Policy Seminars
- present expert information
- illustrate key developments and initiatives around models of collaboration
- showcase best practice and local case studies
- bring sector leaders together to network and plan
Local Government Reform Workshops
- in conjunction with local area networks and councils
- 11 collaboration skills workshops in 11 new council areas
- help preparing for collaborative working and winning collaborative tenders
Conference
- highlight developments in collaborative working
- communicate to policy makers the importance of collaboration
Collaboration Masterclass
Delivered twice each year, provides an overview of:
- the collaborative spectrum
- models of collaboration
- best practice principles that underpin successful collaborative work
- potential deal breakers of collaboration
- the role of legal agreements in collaboration
