The Importance of Partnerships

Michael W. Smull




Across the country, agencies that work with people with developmental disabilities are struggling to change from putting people in programs to supporting people in the lives that they want. Change begins with learning to plan with people rather than planning for them. Agencies struggle to learn what is important to each individual that they support and to help each of these individuals move toward the life that they want. The initial focus for most of the agencies that begin to convert from offering programs to offering supports is to help people with disabilities get what is important within the constraints of available resources and the presence of any issues of health or safety. As they continue to struggle, they discover that they need to broaden their focus. They discover that people with disabilities cannot be empowered unless those who are providing the support are also empowered.

The managers of these agencies have discovered the power of partnerships. Rather than accumulating power, they see their role as sharing power. Managers have learned that best practice requires that the people delivering the support feel respected, trusted, and valued. Managers cannot just change the way that they talk, they must change the way that they act. They have to change the practices of their agency to reflect the values that underlie partnership. Some examples of partnership in action are:

At Community Living-Wilmington (a supported living agency in North Carolina), the people who are supported get to select who works with them while the people providing support get to select who they work with. There are boundaries and limitations in how this works. Neither the people receiving nor the people providing support need to have "cause" in order to make a change. However, team leaders are responsible for insuring that a request does not just reflect transient irritation and to insure that the people supported are not left without the support that they need.

At the pubic provider agency in Manchester, England pilot efforts to build partnership begin with staff learning what is important to them and then learning what is important to the people they support. A manager then facilitates the development of a plan where the staff seek to get more of what is important both for the people supported and for themselves. Schedules and responsibilities have been changed. A person supported gets to go to her church with a staff member from the same church. Staff who are "morning people" have swapped coverage times with staff who are "evening people." One staff member, who was going to a music club on her own time, is now taking someone she supports (who also loves music) to her music club as part of work time.

Hope House Foundation, a supported living provider in Norfolk, Virginia, has been working on partnership for the past decade. They make sure that before any policy or procedure can be adopted there are opportunities for all of the people effected to be heard. Staff who want to learn something that reflects their personal interests are supported with dollars that come from fund raising regardless of whether or not there is a perceived direct benefit for those supported. The disparity between the pay of managers and the pay of direct support staff is being narrowed on the basis that you cannot say that support staff are the most valued people in the agency and then pay them at a rate that says they have little value.

These agencies, and many others nationally, have found that partnership "pays" in a variety of ways. Practicing partnership not only enhances the quality of life for those supported but also effects other areas such as the rate of turnover for those people doing the support. Agencies like Hope House Foundation and Community Living - Wilmington report annual turnover rates that are closer to 10% than to the 50% plus reported by many community agencies. If agencies are going to move from providing programs to providing supports they are also going to have to learn to practice partnership. We cannot practice respect for the people we support unless we respect the people providing the support.

College Park, Maryland
December, 1996


Michael Smull can be reached at:
Support Development Associates
4208 Knowles
Kensington, MD 20895
(301) 564-9572 or (fax) 564-6657
E-Mail: mwsmull@compuserve.com