Professional accounts of effective interagency collaboration in child and family services

Effective interagency collaboration is essential to safeguard children. Some, however, have questioned the extent to which service integration results in improved outcomes for children and families. Moreover, the area of child and family services has no single set of best-practice standards to guide professionals or networks. Despite the lack of research to guide interagency collaboration, professionals are tasked with making such collaborations effective and demonstrating positive outcomes. The Northern Sydney Child and Family Interagency Coordination Project established a project evaluation at the outset, in order to contribute to what is known about collaborations in this sector. Drawn from 17 interviews with professionals, findings indicate that the coordinator's personality and style is a key factor in the network's effectiveness, and that stakeholders were more energised by the network, which led to an increase in referrals between agencies. These findings have implications for the sustainability of these networks.