This master thesis examines how FUT (Fælles Udrykningsteam) influenced the cooperation between professional police officers and nurses. Furthermore, how the cooperation impacts the professional collaboration, and the interactions with citizens with mental health issues. The FUT project ran from 2019 to 2021 in four police departments in Denmark. The design of the present thesis is a case study, where a group of professionals took part in FUT. The primary data is developed and analysed using the methodological principles of hermeneutic interpretation. The project contains empirical data which is collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews and furthermore from a document analysis. The qualitative method is applied by investigating and interviewing professionals who have worked in FUT. The empirical and document analysis are both contributing to the theoretical choices made by the authors. The first part of the analysis will examine how FUT can be understood in the context of co-creation as a strategy of structuring welfare offers. Secondly the project investigates whether FUT can be understood as a project with the use of collaborative innovation. And how these innovative ways of working can create both barriers and motivate the professional officers and nurses. Finally, the interactions between the professionals and the target group are examined using selected terms described by Pierre Bourdieu. Based on the analysis the project found: 1) Several complications and opportunities in the professional cooperation. The project found that the concept of FUT was structured in a non-silothinking way, in which FUT sought to solve a social problem in cooperation between two large sectors. The choice of bringing professions together, gave the employees the opportunity to make use of their variedcompetenciesdoing the interactions with people with mental illness. The concept of co-creation sought to involve, not only the professionals, but also the target group of people with mental illness. In our case, we found that the professionals could potentially struggle with allowing the target group to influence the corporation, because of different aims and expectations in the practice of social work. 2) Secondly the project found that the way FUT was organized and managed, had a big influence on how the professionals were acting towards each other and the target group. The professionals were employed in two different sectors, and therefore had different monopolies and professional bureaucratic positions, which could create conflict with the role of the other professions. The project results showed that, down the line, interdisciplinary cooperation allowed mutual acknowledgement of each other’s specialities and in time diminished intersectorial barriers
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previously observed. But cooperation between two sectors has its own issues. For example, the legal framework made it hard to use the full potential of interdisciplinary cooperation. One of the innovative examples of the cooperation of FUT was that participants were dressed in civil clothing and were driving in civil cars. 3) The third and last part of the analysis found that the professionals' habitus had a major impact on how they intervened with people with mental illness. This also meant that the professionals acted differently toward the target group because of how they perceived the target group's situation as a social problem. We found that the professionals had a large knowledge monopoly which made the distribution of power more visible to the target group. Although the condition in which the professionals had more time available to interact with the target group made it possible not only to scale down the balance of use of force, but also to interact more caring and tailored to the individual. Based on the project's analysis is concluded that FUT can be understood as a project that worked innovatively in the context of co-creation. The central findings from the analysis are as follows: 1) The FUT-project made it possible for the professionals to interact with and help mentally ill people in a different way compared to their general practice. 2) The collaboration between the professionals both held barriers and motivating powers affecting the professional work. Time brought down the barriers which formed the collaboration and motive powers. 3) Power dynamics between the professionals and the target group was identified as a result of differential positions and understandings of what is right and wrong. Finally, the project reflects on how FUT can be understood in the context of the development of the Danish welfare state including the psychiatric department. Reflexions will be made on how FUT as an organization can be understood as a positive contribution to the treatment of mentally ill citizens. But also, if the performance of FUT can be comprehended as a symptom of major challenges of the Danish psychiatric departments when handling an increasing number of admissions of people with psychiatric illness. Lastly, the project reflects on whether the funds can be generalized to other contexts than FUT within the psychiatric field. Lastly it is discussed how the tendencies, identified in the master thesis, can be contributed to similar practices within the social work field.