Partnerships

Our Approach

Partnerships are essential to our way of working.  They can help us:

• to improve and strengthen how we deliver our services.
• to achieve a more efficient and effective use of our resources.
• to assist our partners in providing quality services to the communities of Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

Partnerships come in all shapes and sizes; they can be formal or informal, long-term or short-term, and they can operate at many different levels.  For some, we might have a statutory responsibility to be represented, while for others we might be involved to deliver specific one-off activities.  Whatever form they take, we are committed to playing an active part.

Working in Partnerships

Our work with partners is guided by our overall vision of ‘making Herefordshire and Worcestershire safer from fire and other hazards and to improve community wellbeing.’  Community safety and wellbeing are important themes for many of our partners, such as the local authorities and the Police, so addressing issues jointly through partnership working can help to make a bigger impact.

We know that working in partnerships brings many benefits, but also some risks,  so we have a broad definition and a set of guidelines to help to make sure that any risks are outweighed by the benefits.  Our definition is:

‘A partnership is a joint working arrangement between two or more independent partners, which aims to achieve something that they could not do alone.  There is usually an agreed common goal, an agreed programme of action and a separate organisational structure or process to achieve this goal.  By working together the partners are able to pool their skills, resources and relevant information as well as sharing any risks and rewards.’

Signposting

The Signposting Service is a partnership service that aims to connect vulnerable adults who may be at risk to appropriate statutory services they may not currently be receiving.  The service is for front-line members of staff who visit people in their homes whilst carrying out their organisations' core business, they may observe additional areas of concern that may be putting the individual at risk, and may require further assistance.   By using the service, people can then be connected to services they may need. Partners include all statutory services across the counties of Hereford and Worcestershire.

Partnerships Register

We are currently updating our database of the partnerships we are involved in and will be putting this into a Partnerships Register, which will be available on our website in due course.  We’ll also bring you more information on the work we do with partners, but in the meantime, here are some links to some of those partnerships.