This paper explores how key actors responsible for education, health, and social welfare in six municipalities in Norway collaborate across public sectors to accommodate the needs of children and youth in their region. The collaboration is organized as an intermunicipal network led by a network coordinator. The network was established due to two major national reforms that involve all three public sectors. These reforms imply changes that aim to improve collaboration across public sectors focusing on identifying and supporting vulnerable children from when they are born until they have finished upper secondary education. In this region, the leaders of municipalities decided to merge these two reforms which would enable identifying problems early and provide a more holistic approach to supporting children and youth in various life phases. To support the multiprofessional collaboration, a partnership with the local university college was established. The partnership includes support in terms of moderating meetings, coaching the network coordinator, providing professional development as well as establishing a joint language, and understanding that facilitate multi-professional collaboration. The following research questions guide our analysis: 1) How is the campus-community partnership organized? 2) What characterizes the emerging professional collaboration across public sectors and institutions? 3) What are mutual benefits from the campus-community partnership? For the analysis, we apply theories on institutional work developed by Lawrence and Suddaby (2006). This concept can help illuminate how actors at different levels translate, share and develop joint knowledge as they put the children at the centre of attention. Translation as a theoretical concept is not only useful for analysing knowledge‐transfer processes, it also has the potential to guide deliberate interventions as part of institutional work in such processes to achieve various outcomes (Røvik, 2016). The analysis draws on data gathered by the means of observation of network meetings and semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in the campus-community partnership. Key findings show that support from the university college is essential to structure, moderate meetings and keep the focus on the children. Moreover, the discussions around interventions reflect appreciation of bringing in multiprofessional perspectives to create support not only for children, but also for their families.

Lawrence, T. B. and Suddaby, R. (2006) Institutions and Institutional work. In Clegg, S.R., et al. (Eds.) Sage Handbook of Organization Studies (p. 215-254). Sage. Røvik, K. A. (2016). Knowledge Transfer as Translation: Review and Elements of an Instrumental Theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(3), 290-310.