Partnership and collaboration: rhetoric and reality

Multidisciplinary collaboration in child protection work in the UK is facing considerable strains resulting from major organizational changes across public welfare systems, budgetary cuts, and severe resource deficits. In parallel with this there has been a powerful impetus through new legislation to recast the management of child protection in order to involve clients far more in decision making, reduce the removal of children from families, and to redirect resources towards a more preventive approach. This paper considers the nature of effective partnerships both between clients and agencies, and between agencies in the child protection field. The need for clear definitions of "partnership" is emphasized as well as the necessity for partnerships to be underpinned by a continuum of supportive and protective services. A framework for interagency collaboration is offered.