Leadership in Families

Developing Collaborative Partnerships

Collaboration has become the byword of the 1990s as a strategy for systemic change in human services, education, government, and community agencies. Increasingly, public and private funders are rewarding or requiring collaborative efforts. The advent of block grants is creating an urgent need for integrated, locally controlled services. Shrinking resources are causing many organizations to consider the potential benefits of working together. States are looking at ways to integrate their economic, work force, and technology development efforts (Bergman 1995). Perhaps most important is the realization that the complex problems and needs of families, workers, and communities are not being met effectively by existing services that are "fragmented, crisis oriented, discontinuous, and episodic" (Kadel 1991, p. vi). Collaboration involves more intense, long-term efforts than do cooperation or coordination. Collaborating agencies make a formal, sustained commitment to accomplishing a shared, clearly defined mission. Collaborative efforts can overcome such problems as fragmentation of client needs into distinct categories that ignore interrelated causes and solutions. They can make more services available or improve their accessibility and acceptability to clients (Melaville and Blank 1993).

Collaborations require a change in thinking--the ability to see the "big picture"--and in operating--alteration of structures, policies, and rules to make service delivery seamless. Such changes, or "paradigm busting" (Bendle/Carman 1996) can be intimidating or threatening; in addition, other barriers must be overcome in order to make partnerships work: negative past experiences with collaboration; difficult past/present relationships among agencies; competition and turf issues; personality conflicts; differing organizational norms, values, and ideologies; lack of precedent; and fear of risk (Anderson 1996; National Assembly 1991). This Brief...