Knowledge developing collaboration - a challenging condition for social services in sparsely populated municipalities

Social services in Sweden are currently facing major challenges.

Demographic changes and rapid societal development mean increasing need for interventions, in times of lack of resources.

A new Social Services Act will also mean a need for changed, knowledge-based work and methods.For social services´ individual and family care (IFO) in small municipalities in sparsely populated areas, the same expectations and requirements apply as for more resourceful settings in larger municipalities.

At the same IFO in rural settings have special conditions that both help and overturn.For quite a few years, R&D Social Services, Umeå University and IFO in eight municipalities in Västerbotten´s inland have worked together in a series of research and development projects.

We now face this challenge together - how do we create a functioning interaction for joint knowledge development based on our experiences and identified challenges and opportunities?Three important tracks are at the center of the collaborative project ahead.

The tracks are based on the work we have carried out so far and which would need time, support and resources to mature and stabilize.

It is about;continue the anchoring and development of Digitala Kollegan – the digital platform for the exchange of experience and knowledge development, invented by IFO´s employees in collaboration with R&D Social Servicesdevelop and test specially designed forms of collaboration around quality and competence provision that will function in the conditions that prevail in sparsely populated areasincrease and strengthen knowledge and skills on leading, managing and developing small-scale settings with major challengesThe purpose of the collaborative project is to have the opportunity to find sustainable structures that are able to handle the stream of challenges and opportunities that the social service´s IFO is facing, with a viable interaction both within and between IFO units and with the external actors who are set to contribute to knowledge development processes.The goal is to find sustainable forms and strategies for a knowledge-developing social service that makes use of the added value of the small municipality´s IFO.The added value is found in taking advantage of the available competence within IFO for broad knowledge and method development in cooperation across municipal borders and in strengthening the interaction with the regional support function, Umeå University and other academic environments.