The purpose of the project has been to investigate how different Nordic welfare services in cooperation across sectors create participation and change for young adults with mental health problems.

Partnerships and co-production across welfare sectors have become a popular policy discourse and a prescription for many professionals across a wide range of public services. Within the area of mental health services, it has been suggested that the support should be designed more around the need of the users than around professional concerns. A more active involvement of users and other civil players in the care is regarded as a fundamental contributor to this process.

However, there is still a lack of empirical studies investigating practices where professionals, volunteers and young adults with mental health problems collaborate and interact in everyday activities. This report is a contribution to this gap in the literature. Using three case studies set in partnerships between various public and civil players, this report investigates how change and participation are constructed within different institutional arrangements in Denmark and Sweden.

The empirical data comprises ethnographic field notes and 60 interviews with leaders, professionals, volunteers, and young adults with mental health problems. The discourses and narratives constructed in the cases are analysed to understand the rationalities and values produced in the different cross-sectoral collaborations.

The transformation processes of professionals, volunteers, and young adults are analyzed to understand their positioning and negotiation of participation and change in the hybrid practices. The analysis shows that the partnerships and collaborations across sectors consist of both common values and contradicting logics that make the interactions both productive and challenging. Underlying paradoxes in the collaborations generate a certain form of hybrid governance that can be difficult for the players in practice to navigate within.

However, the case studies also provide evidence that cross-sectoral collaboration and interaction create some unique possibilities for promoting participation and inclusion of young adults with mental health problems. The hybridity of the practices creates a complexity where new work roles and positions are produced for the players involved. The three case analyses underline that the hybridity is produced and negotiated in different ways, which leads to diverse outcomes for the young adults’ possibility of transcending marginalization.