“Drawing on your knowledge of a specific multi-professional and inter-agency partnership, analyse the current context for practice for professional youth and community workers. You should analyse organisational and management cultures which support or inhibit partnership in practice and present one ethical dilemma, which challenges you as a professional youth and community worker. (This essay will present the ethical dilemma of the Police working alongside Burnage High school predominantly focusing on the unequal partnership. In addition to this, I will be analysing certain cultures, which arise in inter-agency working using Burnage High School as a case study, and finally I will begin with analysing the current context of youth and community work.)”

Working with young people and/or community work has always had a strong element of multi-professional and inter-agency partnerships. Partnerships, generally, support the delivery of a service to the service user. Partnerships range from the local youth club being in partnership with a religious organisation to a partnership between the Police and a network of education providers such as high schools and colleges. Within these partnerships, cultures arise which can support a partnership or hinder a partnership. Certain partners may insist that they should become larger stakeholders, large partners pressure smaller partners to support their beliefs and sometimes information is not always shared amongst partners.  Successful partnerships such as The Hideaway Youth Project and 42nd Street have worked well because both partners have the interest of the service users at heart. Unfortunately, w…(short extract)