www.skillsforcare.org.uk/coreskills

Discussing partnership working in team meetings

How to use this activity

1.  Use this activity for reflective team discussions, for example in team meetings or with small groups of workers.

2.  Ask them to think about how they work in partnership.

3.  Work through the questions below and ask the group to share ideas.

Top tips to look out for

Workers can:

§  communicate clearly with each other and in a larger group

§  understand key terms in social care

§  explain their thoughts and ideas clearly and logically

§  understand how to work well with others

§  use clear language that is grammatically correct

§  listen to other people and respond effectively.

Activity

Discuss the following questions in the group to help you think about what we mean as partnership working.

1.  Who are our care partners? For example nursing team, social workers or friends and relatives.
Appendix one can help you think about working in partnership.

2.  How do we work well as a partnership?

Think about:

§  What are the key elements of good partnership working? Write down your ideas in appendix two.

§  Think about how you communicate with different partners in appendix three.

3.  What examples of good partnership working can you think about?

§  What made this work so well?

4.  What examples of ineffective partnership working can you think about?

§  What made this not work?

5.  How effective is our partnership working in general?

§  Where is it most effective?

§  Where is it least effective?

6.  In the area where it doesn’t work as well as we would like:

§  What problems arise most often?

§  Why do these problems arise?

§  What can we do to address these problems?

Finish the discussion by summarising the main points of the session. This could be what works well and what doesn’t when working in partnership, and any actions your workers are going to take to improve their partnership working.

Reinforce the point that team work is an essential core skill for all social care workers.

Appendix one: Who are our care partners?

Think about the people you support. The think about the different people and teams you work with to provide this care and support. Write some of them down on this sheet.


Appendix two: What are the key elements of good partnership working?

Think about what makes a good partnership, the different skills you need and what you expect from others.

Come up with a list of key elements that make up effective partnership working.


Appendix three: How do you communicate with different partners?

It is important that everyone knows how to communicate with different partners. Communication could happen face to face, over the phone or via email.

Think about your partners and how you communicate with them. We have started it off for you.

Partner / How to communicate
Other care workers / §  Handover – written notes and verbal handovers
§  Update care plans
§  Informal chatting