Effective collaborations

We can help you develop and sustain effective collaborations, including support with design, management and evaluation.

Whether you need support to run an improvement network, develop place-based collaboration or build a social movement – we have a range of engaging, powerful and fun approaches that can shift collaboration from frustrating and inefficient to productive and effective partnerships that deliver improvement.

Our approach

Collaboration is about creating value together. For it to be meaningful, collaboration needs to be planned and conducted with rigour.

We looked at the evidence base and existing high-performing collaborations. While the purpose and activities vary widely, high-performing collaborations consistently share a set of eight characteristics.

We use these characteristics and a diagnostic tool to guide organisations and individuals to better understand their collaboration’s strengths and opportunities. This shows them what they can do to collaborate more effectively and create more value.

Download our report on the eight characteristics of effective collaborations

Our services

Developing, sustaining and measuring collaboration is not easy, but we can support you to create and maintain meaningful and effective collaborations.

Our services are broadly split into three areas.

• Scoping and design: from early explorations for stakeholders considering whether and how to start collaborating to co-designing and developing a formal network. We can support all aspects of the process to ensure that your collaboration has a clear purpose and is set up to meet the needs, scale and ambitions of partners.
• Support: we support collaborations and networks at various stages of maturity, offering bespoke solutions based on the context and needs of the network. This can incorporate event support, leadership coaching, engagement and evaluation.
• Impact measurement: we help leaders to reflect on progress, opportunity areas and the key learnings. We also offer ways to measure the health of a collaboration. This includes using a range of research methodologies to evaluate the extent to which collaborations are meeting their purpose and assess levels of engagement across the partnership.

Our experience

We have supported networks across health and care to develop, sustain and measure their collaboration. These include:

• Impact on Urban Health: We worked with Impact on Urban Health to design, launch and support a network that facilitated relationship building, learning and sharing, to improve children’s health. Members of the network and colleagues from Impact on Urban Health consistently reported finding the network to be a valuable use of time that would increase the impact of the programme overall.
• South East London Integrated Care System: We facilitated the design and launch of a community of practice focused on virtual wards, The approach centred on co-production, with outputs driven by members themselves. Nearly 90% of respondents reported their participation helps improve virtual wards programmes in south east London. The online workspace we co-created continues as a hub for idea exchange, peer learning, and resource sharing. This community-led model cultivated generosity and contribution among participants to effectively spread innovations and best practices.

We have also:

• showcased network learnings with the Children and Young People’s Diabetes Network
• developed a learning network with HelpForce.

What our clients say

“The Kaleidoscope team is one of the best I’ve worked with. They used their expertise and experience in building effective networks to create a community of practice that has created common understanding, shared learning and problem solving – this has had a hugely positive direct impact on the development of our virtual wards/hospital at home service offer. Not only did they facilitate impact and improvement, but also went out of their way to make their sessions invigorating, inclusive and joyful. We would not hesitate to work with them again.”

Ekuba Edjah, Assistant Director, Virtual Wards /Hospital at Home, South East London ICS

“We’ve all been involved in collaborations which haven’t worked. Kaleidoscope has helped the Association of Groups develop in a way that has avoided the pitfalls and achieved the benefits of systematically working together. Kaleidoscope has enabled us to have workshops and events that are interactive, insightful, and even a little bit fun.”

Sir David Sloman, when Chief Executive, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

“Working with Kaleidoscope has really helped generate a helpful and healthy balance between free form discussion, structured conversation and decision making. They created an environment where everyone is able to contribute equally and openly, which has been critical to our ability to work together effectively.”

Amanda Pritchard, when Chief Executive, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

Could we help you?

Can we help with your collaboration and network needs? Get in touch to talk about the options.