COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS & LINKAGES: REACHING OUT TO WORK TOGETHER
This module provides
participants with strategies for creating, using, and sustaining community
partnerships. Participants have the opportunity to learn and use the
characteristics of successful partnerships, assess their own agency, map and
assess potential partnerships in their jurisdictions, and strategize about how
to successfully work with other agencies and community stakeholders.
Competency
1: Participants
understand the characteristics of successful partnerships.
Competency
2: Participants can assess their own agency and its
readiness for community partnerships and linkages.
Competency
3: Participants can map their jurisdiction for potential
partnerships and linkages and assess their agency's and their own current
relationship with these resources.
Objective
3.1: Participants can use this
information to begin planning how to create, use, and sustain more successful
community partnerships and linkages.
Competency
4: Participants can assess the cultures of key child
welfare partners and use this information to plan for more successful and
productive relationships.
Objective
4.1: Participants are able to
describe the "culture"of their agency, compare/contrast it with the culture of
agencies they work with, and identify the implications for the development of
partnerships.
Handout
and Transparency 3.1: Assessing Your Own Agency.
Handout and Transparency 3.2: A Community Eco-Map. (PDF)
Handout
and Transparency 3.3: Preparing for Working with Potential Partners.
Handout
and Transparency 3.4: Agency "Cultural"Comparison Exercise.
Handout
and Transparency 3.5: Some
Strategies for Successful Cross-Agency Partnering
Note:
In Activity Three, Step 2, the trainer will need to refer to/use Handout
and Transparency 2.4 from Module 2, Categories of Potential Collaborators.
Overhead
Projector
5 Flip
Charts (one for trainer, four for small groups)
Colored
Dots (green, yellow, red)
Masking
Tape
Tell participants:
-
In Module 1, we focused on why community partnerships and linkages are so important.
-
In Module 2, we spent time learning what community partnerships and linkages are, the different
kinds of community partnerships, and who our potential partners are.
-
Now, in Module 3, we're going to focus on how to create, use, and sustain successful partnerships
and linkages. We're going to focus on the HOW by four different activities:
-
We're going to look at the characteristics of successful
collaborations as well as unsuccessful ones.
-
You're going to assess your own agency and its readiness
for collaboration.
-
You're going to map the resources and relationships
in your jurisdiction.
-
We're going to strategize about how to work successfully
with other agencies and community stakeholders whose "culture"is quite
different from child welfare's.
Go through the following:
-
Ask participants to think about a time when they had to work with someone else to complete
a task (such as working on an assignment for school, planning a vacation, developing
a case plan with a family, disciplining a teenager, or building something).
What worked well in that situation? What did not work well?
-
Give participants a couple of minutes to think and share
their experiences in working with other people and discuss what made the partnerships
work or not work.
Positive responses may include:
-
We both had something to gain.
-
Expectations were clear.
-
We listened carefully to what
the other person needed.
-
We knew what the goal was.
-
There was a mutual acceptance.
Negative responses may include:
-
We did not understand what the
other person wanted.
-
We did not have enough time;
we had to finish fast.
-
One person was doing most of
the work.
-
There was no trust.
Explain the following:
-
These same characteristics can help or hinder the development
of effective partnerships with staff in other agencies serving families that
are in the child welfare system, as well as other community stakeholders.
-
Successful partnerships are characterized by the following:
there is something to be gained by both parties; expectations are clear; both
parties know what the goals are; both parties have mutual respect for each other.
-
Unsuccessful collaborations are characterized by the
following: a lack of trust or respect or understanding of the mission and values
of the agency; unclear goals and expectations; both parties didn't benefit from
the collaboration.
Ask the following:
Do you have any questions or comments about the characteristic
of successful partnerships?
Explain the following:
-
Community collaboration is usually best achieved when
it is done in a planful way. It doesn't just happen. People who are successful
in creating, using, and sustaining community partnerships for the good of their
clients begin with planning.
-
The first step in planning how to create, use, and sustain
community partnerships is assessment, just like in our work with clients and
families. You have to know what's going on with your potential partners before
you can successfully approach them, engage them, and work with them.
-
And the first assessment has to begin at home‹your own
agency.
Explain the following:
-
Community collaboration begins with an examination of
a one's own agency. We can't collaborate with other outside groups until we
know and use our own agency resources well.
-
We're going to do an exercise now to assess your own
agency and its readiness to collaborate. This is a geography-based exercise.
You need to form into groups based on where your agency is. In other words,
people who work in the same office should group together. (Note to trainer:
you could end up with two to four groups.)
-
So break up into agency groups now. Please select a
recorder who should record your results on the flip charts. Take about 15 minutes
to discuss the following questions. (Call participants' attention to Handout
3.1: Assessing Your Own Agency.
Place Transparency 3.1 on the
overhead projector.)
Do the following:
-
Ask each of the groups to report their results.
-
Look for common themes that emerge from the groups and
record them on the trainer's flip chart.
-
When you've identified the common themes, ask the participants
if these give them any ideas about what would need to go into a plan to improve
their division's and their agency's ability to create, use, and sustain successful
community partnerships and linkages. Record these on the flip chart paper.
Say the following:
-
We're going to do something that is both fun and useful.
-
We're going to construct a map of potential community
partners in your neighborhood/catchment area.
-
But it will be more than a map. It will also visually
show relationships with potential collaborators as a preparation for developing
a plan to create and improve community partnerships and linkages.
-
This is another geography-based exercise. You need to
form into groups based on where the agency is. In other words, people who work
in the same office should group together. (Note to trainer: you could end
up with two to four groups.) So go
back to the same groups you were in before.
-
This is a five-step exercise. The first step is to define
or draw the boundary of the catchment area or neighborhood that you are going
to map. The neighborhood should be as large as necessary to provide an array
of services that your clients may need.
When the groups have defined their catchment
boundary, say the following:
-
Get someone to volunteer to be the recorder in your
group. They should record your results on the flip chart paper.
-
In Step Two, you are going to draw an eco-map of your
neighborhood. (Refer participants to Handout 3.2:
A Community Eco-Map. Place Transparency 3.2 on the overhead projector.)
-
Using the flip chart, draw your agency as a circle in
the center of the map, with the agency's name and street address inside the
circle.
-
Next, using other circles, identify all potential collaborators
in your neighborhood. Write their names in the circles surrounding your agency
circle. (Note to Trainer: Put Transparency 2.4:
Categories of Potential Collaborators from Module 2 on the overhead projector or refer participants to Handout
2.4.) Make sure that you
identify potential collaborators in the neighborhood from each of the following
categories:
1. Services within your own agency but not within your unit/division (for example, TANF).
2. Formal, traditional service providers that child welfare workers often work with (for example, mental health providers, domestic violence, educators).
3. Other service providers that child welfare workers don't usually work with (for example, police, health care providers).
4. Less formal services (for example, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, Police Clubs, family support centers).
5. Neighborhood and community organizations and networks (for example, faith-based groups, neighborhood associations).
6. Public services (for example, utilities, transportation).
7. Other community stakeholder groups (for example, the business community, city and county government officials, civic organizations, Chamber of Commerce).
After the groups have
finished drawing and naming all the circles, say the following:
-
Now it's time to assess or define your agency's current
relationship with the neighborhood-based potential collaborators.
-
After you discuss the relationship between your agency
and another agency or organization or network and have reached a consensus about
the current relationship, draw one of the following kinds of lines: