If only a utopian world could exist; a world where parenting of children is a responsibility for the entire community as a whole. A world where everyone who is involved in support of families, children and youngsters worked together to put them at the center of their focus; a world where these people would effectively put their hands together to provide their needs and improve their lives to the best of their abilities; this world does not exist! This is the ugly sad truth. The question is, however, why doesn’t it exist? Why can’t we put this imagined world to reality? Assessing the reasons behind this reveals a heave of barriers that underlie integrated working.
The differences that exist between people is one of the problems. The differences in values and roles that exist among people inhibit integrated working. The issue of power and hierarchy also paves the way as a difference. It is difficult to perceive a joint working where a status difference exists. Other parties in the group will feel threats to their control, autonomy, and professional status. In decision making, the high ranked professionals tend to silence others and push their point to pass through. Different people have different employment conditions for instance time. The time for other participant employees may not fit them into the integration, so they prefer not being part of it.
The behavior exhibited by people is another barrier. Stereotyping due to lack of knowledge is one of the most annoying behavior people exhibit and thus repulse other people. Stereotyping hinders information passing due to the perceived prejudice. Human has a tendency to resist change. Whenever they are told that their behavior is not ethical, they tend to resist and leave the integration.
Poor skills and knowledge is another barrier. Not all the people involved in integrated working are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to work together. The outcome of this effect is that some will feel overwhelmed as compared to others. Those who don’t possess the skills will feel inadequate and opt out.
Poor structure of the integration is a barrier. People who come together to partner but with unclear purpose often end up failing. This leads to fatigue of the members. Closely related to that is having a less number of participants involved leads to not achieving the goals. Geographical boundaries hinder decision making, budgeting, and accountability. A lack of informal structure and constant shift of the structure leads to an unhelpful distraction of the relationships in the integration. All these lead to the collapse of integrated working.
The lack of agreed upon outcomes hinders integrated working. If the goals of the integration are dominated by the few who feel superior and not as per the interest of the entire partnership, then things will go ugly. If the agreed vision does not stream along with the members’ integrated vision but with the odds, then the integrated working will not work. Disagreements and conflicts that arise from these poor outcomes and decision-making lead to the collapse of the integration. It is human nature to want to be heard and to be allowed to voice their opinions. It is human nature to want to see what they decided on being implemented. Failure to this is an abuse of human nature. In such scenarios, the members of such integrations start leaving one by one and thus the collapse.
