Enabling collaboration through co-design: Insights from child protection and domestic and family violence practice

Cross-sector collaboration between statutory child protection and domestic and family violence services (DFV) is recognised as a best social work practice to improve the safety of women and children. However, there are many challenges in establishing collaborative service-delivery, particularly between statutory child protection and non-statutory specialist DFV agencies and there has been extremely limited research in this context. Addressing this research gap, this study used a qualitative research design to demonstrate the benefits of using co-design to build collaborative practice at the intersection of DFV and child protection in South Australia. Co-design processes were convened over two sets of three workshops which were recorded and transcribed for thematic analysis, examining both their content and process over time. The co-design process created a safe relational space facilitating building of relationships and the development of two prototypes. The two prototypes articulated the essential elements of collaborative service delivery including the essential nature of partnership, creating a shared language, and addressing power dynamics. Co-design engaged practitioners including social workers to develop collaboration that was culturally safe, informed by practice wisdom and expert knowledge that responsive and effective in a context of complexity.