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The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of an intersectoral partnership that has taken place in Scotland (United Kingdom) entitled Gamechanger. The main idea of Gamechanger was for statutory, commercial and voluntary organisations to work in partnership to harness the power of football (soccer), to tackle health inequalities and social exclusion. The paper will detail how Gamechanger has been developed, with reference to the newly developed “Incite” model for effective intersectoral partnership working.

This paper draws on the authors’ experiences of leading and evaluating intersectoral partnerships from 2015 to 2019. The report draws on the work which took place during that period, and the achievements in relation to Gamechanger.

Gamechanger has led to significant innovations. It has encouraged sectors to work together, and develop new ways of responding to difficult societal problems.

Gamechanger is believed to be the first initiative of its kind developed with a football club in Scotland.

This work has been developed through robust community-informed efforts. The scope and scale of the projects to deliver community benefits is significant. Gamechanger has provided a means for football to take a different approach to how it works to benefit communities.

The European Union‐supported Child and Adolescent Mental Health in an Enlarged Europe (CAMHEE) project aimed to provide an overview of the challenges, current practice and guidelines for developing effective mental health promotion and mental illness prevention policy and practice across Europe. As part of this work, an analysis was undertaken of the situation in England, making use of a bespoke data collection instrument and protocol.Our analysis suggests that there has been significant effort and investment in research, needs assessment, policy, human resource and service developments in CAMHS over the last 20 years, leading to a more detailed understanding and availability of services. Much of the emphasis has been on assessment and management of difficulties, however in recent years attention has begun to focus on mental health promotion. National standards and programmes such as Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills, 2004) have acted as catalysts for a number of national initiatives.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been involved in academic programs in many Western countries, actively participating and reshaping policy implementation. This tremendous growth in external voluntary and philanthropic organizations in schools is associated with a global trend toward decentralization, commodification, privatization, neoliberalism and governmental budget cuts. NGOs have become very popular partners in attempts to meet education goals set by the government and are increasingly involved both in policy formation and implementation. And arise questions regarding the special challenges facing school principals. This study explored the perceptions of school principals regarding the NGO involvement in designing and implementing education policy in Israel.

The authors applied a qualitative research method, conducting in-depth interviews with primary school principals of schools with low socioeconomic student populations, where NGOs operate at the national level to promote educational achievement programs. This research approach acknowledges the existence of structured, fluid, subjective, flexible and dynamic realities that are attributed different meanings and interpretations and are shaped within political, cultural and social contexts. Thus, this study aims to reflect the perceptions of school principals regarding the involvement of NGOs in design and implementation of education policies. The authors utilized an inductive process of condensing, encoding, categorizing, and theorizing to analyze the data.

Data analysis revealed the following three major themes evident in the perceptions of school principals: intersectoral partnership policies in education; a policy of re-examining mutual responsibility for education; and the benefit of NGO engagement in education. Inter-sectoral partnership policy is the emergence of alternative models, defined as different political and institutional ways of organizing collective action is an effective way to organize and benefit, and is a way of introducing new ideas, actors and resources into public education systems. However, this new model is a complex, ongoing and dynamic process with school principals at the helm of these new relationships.

This study includes new information on how school principals see NGOs involvement in planning and implementation of education policy. However, it was conducted with various limitations. First, participants and their input all relate specifically to education in Israel. Any generalizations that may be drawn from them to shed light on similar processes around the world would require the study also be conducted in diverse sociocultural contexts. Second, interviews with principals were held through the 2016–2017 school year. A longitudinal study would be required to examine whether and how principals feel after years of working with NGOs on various projects. Finally, this study only focused on the opinions of principals, representing only one involved party. This cannot be a comprehensive perspective on the partnership and collaboration between formal education systems and NGOs. Thus, further research is necessary to examine the perceptions of NGOs managers, policymakers, supervisors, teachers, pupils and parents. Based on the authors’ study's findings, they recommend investigating whether, how, and under what conditions principals can nurture partnerships with NGOs as a platform for initiative, particularly the vigorous leadership needed to carry out the policy.

The establishment and support of intersectoral partnerships between the Education Ministry and NGOs is a complex, ongoing and dynamic process with school principals at the helm of these new relationships. Principals have been given more independence, autonomy and clout as they maintain the external networks now contributing to improved outcomes and addressing unique community needs. Consequently, the more external factors become involved in education, the more principals are required to manage and implement the partnership. As such, policymakers (main office and district supervisors), implementers (NGO managers, school principals, teachers) and recipients (parents and teachers) must stay attentive to each other, adjust expectations as to the limits of responsibility, and primary to recognize the needs to keep making improvements to the partnership that are based on reciprocal assessment. More, all involved parties must continue to be active in developing, deepening and maintaining the employed mechanisms, normalizing them to become the standard in intersectoral partnerships in education.

This study provides theoretical contributions and practical implications of NGO involvement in designing and implementing education policies from the perspective and function of school principals in this era of ever-changing economic and social reality. Establishment and support of intersectoral partnerships between the Education Ministry and NGOs is a complex ongoing and dynamic process with school principals at the helm of these new relationships. The principals have been given more independence autonomy and clout as they maintain the external networks now contributing to improved outcomes and addressing unique community needs and more principals are required to manage and implement the partnership.

This study aims to investigate whether and how organizational culture moderates the influence of other organizational capacities on the uptake of new mental health care roles by non‐medical primary health and social care services.

Using a cross‐sectional survey design, data were collected in 2004 from providers in 41 services in Victoria, Australia, recruited using purposeful sampling. Respondents within each service worked as a group to complete a structured interview that collected quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously. Five domains of organizational capacity were analyzed: leadership, moral support and participation; organizational culture; shared concepts, policies, processes and structures; access to resource support; and social model of health. A principal components analysis explored the structure of data about roles and capacities, and multiple regression analysis examined relationships between them. The unit of analysis was the service (n=41).

Organizational culture was directly associated with involvement in two types of mental health care roles and moderated the influence of factors in the inter‐organizational environment on role involvement.

Congruence between the values embodied in organizational culture, communicated in messages from the environment, and underlying particular mental health care activities may play a critical role in shaping the emergence of intersectoral working and the uptake of new roles.

This study is the first to demonstrate the importance of organizational culture to intersectoral collaboration in health care, and one of very few to examine organizational culture as a predictor of performance, compared with other organizational‐level factors, in a multivariate analysis. Theory is developed to explain the findings.

The current pandemic and ongoing climate risks highlight the limited capacity of various systems, including health and social ones, to respond to population-scale and long-term threats. Practices to reduce the impacts on the health and well-being of populations must evolve from a reactive mode to preventive, proactive and concerted actions beginning at individual and community levels. Experiences and lessons learned from the pandemic will help to better prevent and reduce the psychosocial impacts of floods, or other hydroclimatic risks, in a climate change context.

The present paper first describes the complexity and the challenges associated with climate change and systemic risks. It also presents some systemic frameworks of mental health determinants, and provides an overview of the different types of psychosocial impacts of disasters. Through various Quebec case studies and using lessons learned from past and recent flood-related events, recommendations are made on how to better integrate individual and community factors in disaster response.

Results highlight the fact that people who have been affected by the events are significantly more likely to have mental health problems than those not exposed to flooding. They further demonstrate the adverse and long-term effects of floods on psychological health, notably stemming from indirect stressors at the community and institutional levels. Different strategies are proposed from individual-centered to systemic approaches, in putting forward the advantages from intersectoral and multirisk researches and interventions.

The establishment of an intersectoral flood network, namely the InterSectoral Flood Network of Québec (RIISQ), is presented as an interesting avenue to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and a systemic view of flood risks. Intersectoral work is proving to be a major issue in the management of systemic risks, and should concern communities, health and mental health professionals, and the various levels of governance. As climate change is called upon to lead to more and more systemic risks, close collaboration between all the areas concerned with the management of the factors of vulnerability and exposure of populations will be necessary to respond effectively to damages and impacts (direct and indirect) linked to new meteorological and compound hazards. This means as well to better integrate the communication managers into the risk management team.

The reopening of schools during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is full of challenges for families, which are heightened for children and young people (CYP) who live with chronic illnesses. This paper aims to offer a framework to support the successful return of CYP with chronic illnesses to school using appropriate intersectoral strategies.

This paper draws on research data on the impact of school closure on CYP with chronic illness and emerging findings of global research about their lives during the pandemic. It is also informed by the perspectives of practitioners in the field, who are working with these CYP and their families.

A framework based on three different strategies for a successful return is established. A small but significant group of CYP living with conditions such as cancer will not yet return and will need ongoing home education provision. CYP with well-controlled symptoms of chronic illness will benefit from school routines and socialization with peers. CYP with poorly controlled illness will need close supervision and individual plans. All groups will benefit from better intersectoral working across education and health and from recent rapid developments in hybrid learning models and telemedicine.

This viewpoint highlights the need for a strategic approach to the return to school of CYP with chronic illness that goes well beyond classifying them as vulnerable students. This group of CYP is already at risk of lower educational attainment, so widening inequalities must be halted. This paper provides a framework for anchoring local intersectoral approaches adapted to the different situations of CYP.

There is a growing call both globally and nationally for integrated multisectoral and multidisciplinary systems of care to be implemented for children's needs in the foundation stages of their growth to be met. Extant literature shows that historical, structural, epidemiological, political and social factors create many adversities for South African children both in the short and in the long term. South Africa's fragmented and weak service delivery compounds the situation. In this paper, the authors describe the lessons learnt from a multisectoral and multidisciplinary community of practice established to strengthen social systems to ensure child wellbeing outcomes.

A qualitative research design was used, drawing on data collected over a two-year period. Data included meeting minutes, focus group discussions, and email communications between project partners. Focus group discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data was analysed thematically.

Findings show that having a shared goal, establishing supportive, mutually beneficial relationships and contributing to services that enhance child wellbeing outcomes enabled the community of practice, while differing organizational mandates and heavy workloads constrained the partnership.

The study shows the effectiveness of a Community of Practice (CoP) in integrating services across sectors for children's well-being and promoting collaborative learning and intersectoral work. However, this success also depends on the presence of strong leadership and efficient coordination.Limitation: Despite its benefits, the CoP model presents challenges, including securing active participation and buy-in from stakeholders, managing time and resource constraints, and dealing with issues in the existing service delivery system. Questions about long-term sustainability and the practicalities of scaling and institutionalizing the model need to be addressed.

Through this paper, the authors contribute to a nascent area of research in the Global South, critically reflecting on the lessons the authors learnt from implementing an integrated community of practice approach to strengthen social sector systems toward the enhancement of children's wellbeing.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an action inquiry (AI) evaluation of the Natureways project, a time-limited collaboration between an NHS Trust Vocational Service and a voluntary sector horticulture-based community interest company (CIC).

Natureways produced positive employment outcomes and an AI process – based on co-operative inquiry with trainees, staff, and managers – explored how these had been achieved.

Natureways’ efficacy was based on features of the setting (its supportiveness, rural location, and workplace authenticity), on its embeddedness (within local care-planning pathways, the horticultural industry, and the local community), and on effective intersectoral working. The inquiry also generated actionable learning about creative leadership and adaptability in the changing landscape of service provision, about the benefits of the CIC's small scale and business ethos, about the links between trainees’ employability, social inclusion and recovery, about horticulture as a training medium, and about the role of AI in service development.

The inquiry highlights how an intersectoral CIC can be an effective model for vocational rehabilitation.

Community-embeddeness is an asset for mental health-orientated CICs, facilitating social inclusion and recovery. Social and therapeutic horticulture settings are seen to be conducive to this.

This case study suggests that AI methodology is not only well-suited to many practitioners’ skill sets, but its participatory ethos and focus on experiential knowledge makes it suitable for bringing a service user voice to bear on service development.

The present study proposes the analysis of DRM strategies that had been implemented into subnational development plans and public policy instruments in the States of Chiapas and Tabasco, located in Southeast Mexico. It describes the methodological phases for the implementation of those strategies and the participatory process, with a multi-level approach, carried out with multiple stakeholders and UNDP advisory.

For this research, two case studies were developed to highlight the factors which make successful DRM in development plans and policies. It included the compilation and review of documents generated by UNDP-PMR program on the mainstreaming process in the past four years, interviews with key actors in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco, such as governmental officers, national and international ONG's, UN agencies and rural communities' leaders.

The review of these case studies demonstrate that for developing countries like Mexico, the process to strengthening institutions setting, needs being present in the field and creating alliances and synergies to generate advocacy processes from a capacity development approach. Having not only an output approach in projects but also mainly an impact strategy, both at the local and the sectoral levels, along with a mid-term timeline and budget, are some of the hallmarks of UNDP-PMR program work.

This study showed two original experiences of mainstreaming DRM into subnational development policies in high risk contexts. These experiences had the participation of multiple stakeholders from local governments and communities. Nowadays, these two experiences are being implemented in the territories despite political administration changes in the last years.