Cross sector collaboration for child and youth services

Collaboration provides the opportunity for learning and creative problem solving. Bringing people from diverse backgrounds together provides a positive environment for transferring knowledge between sectors or organisations, and for generating new ideas and practices. In this context, collaboration across the research, policy and practice sectors can help to solve complex problems and meet specific needs in the child and youth services area. The benefits of this collaboration—benefits that would not have been possible in collaboration across just one or two of these sectors—include generating increased knowledge for all three sectors and influencing policy in a way that otherwise would not have been possible. Collaboration across the three sectors is more resilient to social and political change, but is not widely used in Australia due to the difficulty in obtaining the necessary funding; the time required to make the collaboration work; and the different objectives, needs and cultures of each sector. &nbsp