‘Living with’ Interagency Collaboration – Three Sustaining Practices

Interagency collaboration is increasingly prevalent in welfare contexts due to the current pressure for integrating different professional domains around desired effects on citizens' life and well-being. In the context of prison service this is equally important, due to the complexity in the constellation of actors that come into contact with a citizen before, during and after imprisonment. Drawing on a combination of neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio & Powell in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1991) and sensemaking theory (Weick in Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995), we investigate an example of how "the Norwegian import model" enables actors to make sense of their work in a way that enables a practice of "living with" contradictions. Based on empirical data produced as part of the COLAB project, this chapter analyses the interagency collaboration of staff and management in a Norwegian low-security prison where professionals target the inmates' education, health care, sports & leisure, faith and social services. The chapter identifies some key local practices, which underpin the collaboration across sectors and professions. These three practices are narrative practices, practices related to tools and documents, and shared meetings.