Collaborative Partnership Working

Cumbria CVS has been involved in supporting collaborative, partnership working for a long time, but it’s an area of work that seems to be generating a lot of interest in recent months, and we’d like to tell you about some of the exciting work we’ve recently been involved in.

Clare Edwards has been our Health Partnerships Officer (working in North Cumbria) for one year now. She’s made huge progress in ensuring that local third sector organisations are involved in the development of Integrated Care Communities (ICCS) across North Cumbria, including supporting the involvement of two representatives of the third sector in the delivery groups of each of those ICCs. That work is about to take another step forward, as NHS England have provided the funding to pilot Third Sector Referral Coordinator posts based within the ICC Hubs in Maryport and Penrith.
Those jobs are currently being advertised and we’re expecting a lot of interest, so if you’re interested, you’ve got until Tuesday (7 May) to get your application in. See vacancies section on our website for full details.

We’ve heard from many of our member organisations in South Cumbria that they’d like similar support to engage with local health and care services, and Jozi has recently become involved with the emerging Voluntary Sector Partners Alliance to ensure that South Cumbrian organisations get an effective, strategic voice both within the Bay Health and Care Partnership and the wider Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS). We hope to be able to tell you more about it at the Cumbria Action for Health meeting in Ulverston (30 May 2019).

Jozi has also been pulling together a project to coordinate the support available for the Ex-Service Community in Carlisle and Eden. The project includes Carlisle City Council, Eden District Council and Cumbria County Council along with other third and statutory sector partners and they are currently looking for an individual to coordinate services and support across the two districts. Please see our website for full details of this role: www.cumbriacvs.org.uk/vacancies

We’ve also been working with NCVO on the development of a new module for their “Trusted Charity” quality mark – some of you might be more familiar with this under its old name of PQASSO. The new module is designed to support effective partnership working, and we were delighted to have the opportunity to ensure that as well as supporting formal partnership contracting arrangements, it is relevant to the less formal, collaborative partnerships that we increasingly see developing. It was very exciting to host a national consultation event in Carlisle!

You can find out more about Trusted Charity on the NCVO website, although it’ll be a few more months before the new unit on partnership working is available:
http://www.ncvo.org.uk/practical-support/quality-and-standards/trusted-charity

And finally, we’re delighted to be working closely with Cumbria County Council as they develop their Thriving Communities programme. This is still in its early stages, but the Cumbria Third Sector Network will be closely involved, with a seat at the Programme Board. We’re looking forward to some exciting “Pathfinder” work coming out of this in the next few months.

Engagement Team
Cumbria CVS