Collaboration Is Possible!

Since prevention and intervention related activities address a community and therefore affect the work of all social service professionals working with the same defined population. Education is a good example. Children need a safe and healthy learning environment before they can begin to learn. The school system has become a natural vehicle for screening and assessing and identifying such needs. Therefore, is a place or a domain wherein We know This analogy can be made at the local level, state level and federal level. Therefore, prevention and intervention efforts and activities performed by one group, will affect service delivery to the same population of all vested professional. Creating an on-going program committee, or a safe schools committee, will empower professionals and all of the peers they represent. As a team member, a person gets a voice and a vote, as well as recognition for them and their peers they represent. As more consensus is developed in the decision-making process, the committee, and their campaign, will be more supported by the greater school community.

Interagency collaboration has been taking place at the local, state and federal levels in the fields of juvenile justice, education, mental health, public health, etc. Over the years, models for collaboration have been created, assessed and revised. The tremendous improvements have yielded numerous models for implementation as well as resources for maintaining and strengthening such partnerships. The greatest result produced from decades of efforts, experimentation and investigation is that the available resources increased quality of service delivery and greatly outweigh any innate logistical difficulties that might arise.

Ohio has been in the foreground, successfully creating a shared agenda supported by interagency collaboration as a means for reducing barriers to learning and promoting the safe and healthy development of our youth at school, in the community and among their families. Furthermore, they have been receiving national acclaim for both their efforts and their successes. The Alternative Education and Mental Health Projects of the Center for Learning Excellence at The Ohio State University, who has been supporting this legislative forum and partnership, offers "Mental Health, Schools and Families Working Together for All Children and Youth: Toward A Shared Agenda — Ohio's Experience." This describes the process and timeline activated, the roles of agencies and their professionals, strategies for influencing policy and service delivery, as well as a brief description of their model for creating a the shared agenda, "The Appreciative Inquiry Model."

Mental Health, Schools and Families Working Together for All Children and Youth: Toward A Shared Agenda — Ohio's Experience”: http://www.alted-mh.org/whatsnew/pdfs/10-10OverviewSeedGrant.pdf

The Alternative Education and Mental Health Projects of the Center for Learning Excellence: http://www.alted-mh.org/index.html

The "Appreciative Inquiry Model" is an organizational model, and sometimes a model for conflict resolution. It provides orientation and a framework for thinking, behaving and decision-making when working to create change-based improvements. It is a paradigm for creating a positive, communal avenue for multidisciplinary teams, or diverse groups who are working towards a common goal. Rather than citing deficits or difficulties within a group, the Appreciative Inquiry model deliberately works from a core of positives as antecedents to change and improvement. This Wilder Inventory would be a complementary, first step as a diverse group works to assess and discovering their common strengths, styles and interests. Sue Annis Hammond and Joe Hall describe it as a process for finding common strengths from which to build that already exist among the group; "Appreciative Inquiry works on the assumption that whatever you want more of, already exists in all organizations." Just as a teacher might state every child has capabilities, strengths and interests, the Appreciative Inquiry model states every working group does as well. Furthermore, when this model is directly linked to decision-making process within the group, not only will they be stronger, more widely accepted, but, odds are, changes that were never thought possible, are realized.

"The Appreciative Inquiry Model," excerpted from "A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry" by David L. Cooperrider and Diana as presented by the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation: http://thataway.org/resources/understand/models/models.html

National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation: http://thataway.org/resources/understand/models/ai.html

Mark Chupp, of Beyond Intractability, offers a valuable description of the model, "Report on Appreciative Inquiry: Broadway: Diversity in Progress" as well as details of implementing it in terms of race relations and racial conflict.
Beyond Intractability's and Mark Chupp's, Principles of Practice For Transforming Relations http://www.beyondintractability.org/iweb/principles_of_practice/chupp-5.pdf

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Page Updated: January 28, 2005