What Assets Do You Offer A Collaborative Team?

Because protecting, educating, and nurturing our youth is a shared responsibility, it can also be a shared agenda. This can be taken on by a multidisciplinary team created to promote school violence prevention. The committee should consist of as many different stakeholders as possible: parents, educators, law officials, mental and physical health providers, etc. Although each of us has a unique perspective, mission, support system, and agenda represented by each agency at the table, there is still a degree of overlap. Furthermore, each role brings a unique set of insight, expertise and resources. These similarities and differences among social service agencies supporting youth, families, the school, and the community will increase the committee’s ability to select and implement a valuable school violence prevention program.

What does it mean to collaborate when developing violence prevention, intervention and response programs at our schools? Professionals who collaborate join together, create a shared agenda and set of goals, coordinate efforts, combine expertise, and share resources with on-going cooperation as they assist each other in facilitating the creation of safe and healthy schools promoting student achievement and success. Interagency collaboration promotes success for students and professionals alike.

Successful, cooperative, collaborative teams are not born; instead, they are created and nurtured. The Wilder Foundation offers a valuable and insightful set of resources that can assist a formerly created team as well as one being launched. See their work for its research-based guidance on building successful and effective collaborative teams. From a preliminary assessment of strengths and weaknesses to strategies for sustainability, the Wilder Foundation offers resources that can be a constant source of strength and support for any team.

• Amherst H. Wilder Foundation presents the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory
http://www.wilder.org/pubs/inventory/collaboration.html

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Page Updated: January 27, 2005