Trust and collaboration: the building blocks of change
Starting from a shared concern
In this reflection, I set out how our response to the Schools White Paper came together, what made it feel genuinely collaborative and what it has taught us as we develop the Inclusive Education Community.
The work grew out of a convening focused on young people’s social, emotional and mental health hosted by Wates Family Enterprise Trust (WFET) and partners earlier in the year, with others joining through the wider Inclusive Education Community. The final group brought together experience from mental health, alternative provision, youth support, inclusion and vocational pathways – that breadth was important for the final piece.
The conversation started from a focus on children and young people with SEMH needs, but quickly moved into wider questions about the conditions that make inclusion possible: what is measured, how schools are held to account, how pupil voice is heard, how inclusive practice is supported and whether vocational routes are valued as genuine pathways to success.
At Wates Family Enterprise Trust, we think of co-creation as part of the long-term work of building relationships, trust and shared purpose. We want to help people with different specialisms, perspectives and pressures to learn from one another and work together where there is a useful reason to do so. In much of our work, we take a long view, recognising that those relationships can take time to build and, therefore, any collaboration will take time to bear fruit.
When the Schools White Paper was published, the timescales forced us to think differently. A live consultation created a short window and those involved were contributing alongside the day-to-day demands of running services, supporting young people and working with schools and families.
That makes this process a useful example of what can be achieved in a short time when there is enough structure to support collaboration and enough openness for the work to be shaped by those involved.
Holding the space without owning the answer
WFET’s role was to create the opportunity and support the process. We did not begin with a fixed policy position or a predetermined set of recommendations, nor were we asking people to endorse a WFET view.
We wanted to bring interested contributors together and create the conditions through which they could discuss the White Paper, develop shared recommendations and decide what they wanted to say collectively.
We knew we shouldn’t try to facilitate the process ourselves. Holding the space as a neutral convenor while also designing and leading the discussions would have blurred those roles.
So we asked Social Finance to design and facilitate the process.
Shaun Reeves was able to create the structure, ask the right questions and keep the work moving, while allowing the content and ownership to remain firmly with the group.
It is also important to note that none of those involved were WFET grantees. This was not about convening a funded portfolio, but about using the Inclusive Education Community as a wider space for connection and shared work.
The strength of the process came from what people already brought: practice knowledge, relationships with schools and young people, policy insight, leadership experience and a willingness to listen across different parts of the system.
Seth Bolderow, Inclusive Education Collective Lead, Wates Family Enterprise Trust
Structure, pace and openness
Bringing in Social Finance gave the process a different kind of discipline. They designed a series of workshops framed around three stages (align, focus, develop) that balanced space for openness with momentum, creating enough structure for people to make progress without closing down discussion too early.
The sessions moved from exploring the opportunities and challenges within the White Paper, through identifying common themes, to collectively refining recommendations that everyone could support. Social Finance’s role was not to shape the conclusions but to help the group do its best thinking together.
From the outset, contributors were asked to work to a shared agenda, balance ambition with pragmatism, move at pace and offer friendly challenge. These expectations created useful guardrails. They allowed the group to be positive without avoiding challenge, and practical without losing sight of the scale of change needed.
As this was not our normal way of working, there was some uncertainty in bringing a group together at pace around a live policy issue, but the participants arrived willing to listen, share expertise and think beyond their own priorities.
As the work developed, the process became more focused around two broad areas: systems and practice. Members of the group volunteered to lead the creation of the different sections.
Contributors were asked to clarify the problem each recommendation was trying to solve, identify what the White Paper missed or left unclear, set out the opportunity, develop specific recommendations and consider first steps. That helped move the work from shared concern into something more usable for policymakers:
1. Broaden what is important in accountability
2. Build inclusive practice into every school
3. Value vocational pathways
The response felt genuinely co-created. It was not a set of separate asks brought together at the end. Strong ideas were present from the first session, and the later workshops helped refine, test and strengthen them together. Some contributors took on more writing, while others shaped the work through discussion, comments, review and sign-off.
Making participation possible
Policy engagement and collaboration both take time, and time is often one of the scarcest resources for those closest to children, families and schools. Charities often hold the insight that policy needs but may not have the capacity to sustain engagement on their own.
Part of WFET’s role is to help create some of that capacity through coordination, facilitation and practical support that enables people to contribute. Our role is not speaking on behalf of others; it is supporting the conditions in which they can speak and work together.
This experience has reinforced the importance of an asset-based approach to co-creation. The strength of the process came from what people already brought: practice knowledge, relationships with schools and young people, policy insight, leadership experience and a willingness to listen across different parts of the system.
The role of structure was not to control that expertise, but to help make it visible and useful to the group. People need to understand the purpose of the work and how decisions will be made, but they also need enough space to shape the direction and challenge the thinking as it develops.
Our role is not speaking on behalf of others; it is supporting the conditions in which they can speak and work together.
Seth Bolderow, Inclusive Education Collective Lead, Wates Family Enterprise Trust
Lessons for coordinating a collective response
- Support collaboration, rather than a predetermined outcome:
Funders have an important role to play in supporting and facilitating collective action or agenda setting. Supporting the process rather than having a specific policy position enables consensus building and co-creation and means that stakeholders are fully invested in the outcome. - Neutrality is an active position that requires handing ownership of the outcome to the participants and being open to what emerges.
- Facilitation needs to be structured but not controlling:
It requires structure and experienced facilitators to move the discussion from open sharing of experience and ambitions to developing a consensus around practical, realisable outputs. - Accommodate competing priorities to maintain continuity:
Absence or uneven attendance does not indicate lack of commitment. Collaborative processes need to be designed around the fact that people may contribute in different ways and at different points. There need to be different routes into the work, clear records of what has been discussed, and opportunities to re-engage at any point.
What we are taking forward
As we work with the Centre for Social Justice to develop the Inclusive Education Community, we want to build on what we’ve learned from this process. That will include further convening, communities of practice, shared learning and practical collaboration across the education and charity sectors.
Collaboration between schools, charities and the wider system works best when there is time to understand what each brings, when community knowledge is valued and when people are able to recognise when to lead, when to listen and when to share ownership.
This process reinforced something important about our wider work: co-creation needs trust, structure and care. Our role is to keep creating the conditions in which that can happen.
We would be pleased to hear from anyone interested in this way of working who would like to learn more about being part of the Inclusive Education Community. Please contact us at admin@wfet.org.uk.
