How and when did you become interested in GROW/ employing service users in your organisation?
"It had long been a dream of the CEO of Foundation. We felt it was the ultimate destination in terms of service user involvement. We’ve been strong on service user voice, and had customers as trustees of the Board for a number of years - we have four on the Board at any one time. That in itself was quite a big deal; we had to challenge some of the issues the Charity Commission raised around people having criminal records. We felt it was a natural progression to have customers involved in delivering services. Specifically, we set up a trainee support worker role a couple of years ago that we thought would encompass service users. We wanted to safeguard the level of training budget for staff, so this was in part driven by the efficiency agenda and wanting to bring down the salary base costs. We found that we had a very high standard of applicant for this traineeship, and we took on 12 graduates. We realised at that stage that there was more work to be done to create a level playing field for our service users."
Why did you decide to form a partnership to develop the GROW concept?
"The antecedent to it was attending a Thames Reach/Homeless Link conference last year specifically to learn about the concept and to be able to extend the traineeship to encompass our original vision. At that conference I met Graham (Mynott), who works at Keyhouse (another Yorkshire agency) and we talked about the barriers to employing our own service users We felt that in our region it was different to the possibilities for London agencies for example, who can draw from a really wide pool of service users whereas in our region it’s much smaller and more parochial. So the driver was wanting to develop a wider pool and links with other agencies. We asked Kath (Dane, GROW Programme Manager) to visit us and we were pleased to hear from her that it’s part of her programme, to support agencies and share the learning from Thames Reach’s experience. We were happy we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel."
How did you select which agencies to involve? How did you define the geographical region that the partnership would cover?
"To begin with it was a mixture of personal contacts, and we asked Joe Kent, Regional manager at Homeless Link for support in setting up the partnership. We wanted a range of large and small agencies in the area who shared a common interest – wanting to employ service users. Most of the agencies are local to Yorkshire, and in terms of geographical remit this fitted with the Yorkshire & Humber government office."
What is the aim of the partnership? Has the aim changed over time?
"Firstly I think it has changed. It is to work together proactively to get us to the point where we’re employing service users as a group. We’ve reached consensus on this over time. We’ve gone from having differing views on how employing service users could be achieved to agreeing on using the strengths of the partnership to move us forward. That doesn’t preclude individual agencies moving on with their own plans internally but now there’s a shared vision of the strength the partnership brings to our case to funders for example, to the Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward."
What were some of the early challenges?
"There was a lot of mythology around what can and can’t be done, certainly in our organisation at least – concerns about the legality of it. I was looking for some kind of statute that would say we couldn’t. Of course, there isn’t one! But speaking to other organisations, for example probation, we realised not only are they happy that we do it, they’re thinking of doing it themselves. Those assumptions and myths do need challenging. And seeing it in action makes a difference – so our experience in Bradford where we have a trainee who is an ex-care leaver, seeing her enthusiasm and skills is what makes a difference. Making a conscious decision to allocate resources helps to move us on but the experience with service users as volunteers or workers is what counts. A lot of that we’ve learnt from Thames Reach, the benefits of previous experience. Partly that helps us address issues proactively, not be stunned or caught out by issues arising."
Can you tell me a bit about the evolution of the partnership?
"We’ve had six meetings so far. Initially it was open to a wide range of potential partners, so who’s involved now has been self-selecting. There was some debate about what sort of model to follow, and who should be part of it. There was a feeling that if we put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this would we want someone coming in and taking credit for all that later down the line? Then there was a realisation that we needed to park some of those concerns until we had something to be protective of! It wasn’t as if we had half a million in funding to carve up between us! Rather, we decided to focus on what can be achieved with the minimum of resources or existing budget. So five main partners have stuck at it and remain committed."
How has your agency benefited from being involved in the partnership?
"I think the chance to spark off other people’s ideas. We do see a real opportunity to have a voice, even as a pilot or something small scale we realise we are present on a regional level through the strength of the group. Of course, in addition to that, benefits include learning from others and different ways of doing things. We’ve also benefited as a consortium from support and mentoring from Thames Reach. We were committed to doing this anyway, but I think we’ve learnt more as a partnership than we would have going it alone, it causes you to reflect more. "
What has been the most exciting development in the partnership?
"At the last meeting I think we had a sort of lightbulb moment – thinking about leveraging the power of the partnership to get senior people from JobCentre Plus or the Regional Development Agency to come and talk to us, in a way that perhaps they wouldn’t otherwise. And a feeling of threads coming together – to be honest it has felt disjointed at times but we all felt if we stuck with it it would come to fruition and that’s proving to be the case."
What has been the most challenging aspect of the partnership and / or its work?
"The early brainstorming stuff. We must have looked at 5 different models of partnership agreement before thinking “well what is it we’re agreeing? This isn’t a big tender we’ve won!” the agreement was the desire to work together in itself. But that’s a big challenge for any partnership, to find a way of working, People have to feel there’s something in it for them. And perhaps maintaining momentum, when you haven’t got any funds but I think we’ve done really well at that – I think because all the agencies believe that it’s something critical to get right and are willing to stick to it."
Were/ are there any barriers that prevented the partnership from achieving its aim?
"Funders! Or rather a lack of them. There is a plan B, but funding is an issue, to do it properly. There’s a real will, and internally at Foundation I can see a culture shift and a demand for this to be happening already – there’s a sense of “so where are they all?” But then, necessity is the mother of invention. And there’s a Chinese proverb about if you want food for a year, grow grain, If you want food for a decade, grow trees and if you want food for a lifetime, educate people! On behalf of the partnership, we’re adopting that as our motto! "
What have been the financial costs to your organisation of being involved in the partnership ?
"So far, we’ve not asked for any financial commitment. We considered Futurebuilders loan funding but the majority of partners considered that high risk, so at the moment it’s just the costs that individual agencies have been able to commit. We’ve introduced a trainee coordinator role, part of whose role is to make GROW work, and we’re funding this from our core funding."
Is the work of the partnership having an impact on your organisation? If so, what impact?
"It’s positive working with other organisations who in other circumstances would be viewed as direct competition. In terms of rolling out GROW it’s clear that we’re not working in isolation and the organisation is buying into the shared model. It also acts as an impetus I suppose – having to report back on progress at meetings! "
Bearing in mind the lessons learnt from the last year, what might you do differently if you were to develop this partnership again from scratch?
"I’d want to know what internal resources people are prepared to commit upfront. Having said that, I’m very happy to share our resources and devote resources to shared learning. Also I think we’d have spent more time at an early stage identifying key people we needed to excite about this, rather than waiting for the lightbulb moment maybe we could’ve reached that conclusion earlier. It is a constantly evolving picture, of funding and policy priorities for our customers – such as worklessness, so we’ve responded to that. "
13. If other organisations wanted to form a partnership in their region, what words of advice would you offer to ensure their success?
"Just do it! Actions speak louder than words! "
