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Collaboration

Collaboration is a process among a group of stakeholders with a common agenda. In this case of Discovery, the common agenda is to improve the lives of children from birth to age 8. Partners may include individual parents, other community residents, people representing organized groups of parents and residents (such as seniors), early care and education providers, schools, employers and other business people, government and others with a role to play in helping a community’s children to thrive.

Collaboration is so critical to the work of Discovery because children need many different kinds of support to thrive in their early years and do well in early grades in school. No one family, organization or institution can cover all of these bases alone; no one of them alone has the legal or political power to put all the pieces in place.

This section includes:

» Community Materials
» Statewide Partner Materials
» How To / Toolkits Show Details
Tools for developing a successful collaboration, overcoming obstacles, and fostering a collaborative environment.

This category contains 10 resources

» Community Planning Tools Show Details
Self-assessment and planning is key to the Discovery value of building community capacity to make positive changes on behalf of young children. The Discovery Community Assessment and Planning Tool is designed to facilitate dialogue among participants in the Discovery work about five core principles of collaboration, and the factors that relate to each principle. The Community Planning Tools are offered to help communities to facilitate a planning process around young children. For Discovery, a community planning process is a way in which the collaborative can be a catalyst for systems change and engage those most affected in local decision-making.

This category contains 15 resources

» Funding
» Related Sites

Featured Resources

2007 Application Guidelines for Community Conversations About Education (Community Mediation, Inc.) Show Details
Democracy Works gives up to $2,500 grants to sponsor a Community Conversation about Education. These local conversations are community-wide discussions that examine issues affecting children from birth through high school. Applications are due on September 17, 2007.
(40.5K Bytes)
(See other resources by Community Mediation, Inc.)
Can This Collaboration Be Saved? Show Details Web site
Written by Paul Mattessich, Executive Director of the Wilder Research Center, this article looks at the factors that impact the success of the a collaboration and how to overcome obstacles to successful collaboration.
Collaboration Principles in Action Show Details
Adapted from "How to Build a Community Collaboration," which can be found on the Community Collaboration website (address listed below), this document lists collaboration principles and describes what those principles look like in practice. Principles covered include developing mission and vision statements, setting goals and objectives, leadership, coordination and organization, building relationships, communication and others.

The Community Collaboration website can be found at http://www.communitycollaboration.net

How to Build a Community Collaboration can be found at http://www.communitycollaboration.net/id22.htm
(100.51K Bytes)

Community Profiles Web site
How to Build a Community Collaboration Show Details Web site
Adapted from How to Build a Community Collaboration, which can be found on the Community Collaboration website, this document lists collaboration principles and describes what those principles look like in practice. Principles covered include developing mission and vision statements, setting goals and objectives, leadership, coordination and organization, building relationships, communication and many others.
Blueprint: The Waterbury Early Childhood Action Plan (Waterbury) Show Details
The Waterbury Early Childhood Action Plan includes 11 high-priority strategies in the areas of Early Care and Education, Family Success, and Health. Within each area, challenges and the indicators for measuring success are identified. Detailed data, action steps, and financial implications can be found in each section of the plan.
(1.09M Bytes)
(See other resources by Waterbury)

Resources

Process for Requesting On-Site TA Show Details
Information about the process for requesting a consultant to work with a Discovery community on a particular piece of work.
(19.55K Bytes)



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Community Spotlight

Stafford

Stafford has published the following new resources on the Discovery site:

» Stafford Discovery Activities 2005
» Survey of Parents: Report


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