Building Care in the Heart of the Moment – Exploring the Process of Collaboration for the Making of Flexible Assertive Community Treatment

Introduction: Professional and organisational collaboration of integrated services, like Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (FACT), plays a pivotal role in ensuring continuous and coordinated care for persons with complex mental health needs. While some research reflect team members’ view of FACT or program fidelity, no research has explored the social practice of FACT and how collaboration evolve and sustain.

Aim: The aim is to explore the process of collaboration for the making of the integrated service of FACT.

Methods: A constructivist grounded theory design helped to collect and analyse empirical evidence of 28 interviews with multiprofessional FACT team members and managers, in 2021 (n = 14) and 2022/2023 (n = 14) in Sweden.

Results: Building care in the heart of the moment was constructed as the core category reflecting the timely process of FACT, while the sub-categories of 1) Embracing empathy and holistic view with users’ best interest at heart, 2) Openness, curiosity and genuine interest for each other, 3) Borders across disciplines and services get erased yet sharpened, and 4) Orchestration of the team and leadership underpins sustainable collaboration reflected critical ingredients and passages of collaboration.

Discussion: Sustainable collaboration required organisations to support team members’ transition from individual or entrapped social niches into an enabling niche, supportive team environment. Cultivating a social learning space may reduce uncertainty and enables timely, skillful action through which relationships, expertise, and performance develop.