Community Collaboratives

Currently all counties, either individually or in cooperation with other counties, have an established collaborative group that addresses issues that impact the lives of children, families, and special populations in their area. These collaboratives provide for:

• Community planning and visioning (establishes workgroups of agency staff, consumers, and community representatives to plan and/or implement services for a target population or coordinate services);
• Sharing of information regarding programs, policies and protocols/procedures;
• Taking responsibility for the local directions and coordination of state, federal, and foundation sponsored collaborative enterprises, including reporting the results/activies;
• Managing state-funded collaborative initiatives and workings with designated fiduciary; and
• Linking with or consolidating other community collaborative groups (Early On Local Interagency Coordinating Councils, Homeless Continuums of Care, Child Abuse/Neglect Councils, Workforce Development, etc.).

Membership of the Community Collaboratives

It is recommended that the membership of the collaboratives be comprised of public and private sector (director level) representatives from the human services organizations that address various family support needs. These may include:

• Basic Needs (food, shelter, etc.) (Department of Human Services, Homelessness/Housing Continuum of Care, Food Banks), Transportation
• Emotional Health (Community Mental Health, Child Abuse/Neglect Councils, Domestic Violence)
• Medical/Health (Public Health, Health Care Organizations)
• Education and Vocational Training(Intermediate School District, local districts, Post Secondary)
• Family Support (Community Action Agency, MSU Extension, Veteran Services)
• Legal (Family Court Judge, Court Administrator, Prosecuting Attorney, County Sheriff)
• Philanthropic Resources (Funding Organizations,Community Foundations, United Way)
• Jobs/Employment (Michigan WORKS!)
• Spirtual (Faith Based Representative)
• Community Representatives (Local Government, Business,Others)
• Consumers
• Senior Representatives (Area Agency on Aging and Commission on Aging)

Role of the Community Collaboratives

It is recommended that each Community Collaborative serve as the entity that: 1) sets the agenda for collaborative activities; 2) focuses resources on common "outcomes"; and 3) acts as the common community interface with State agencies on State "collaborative" efforts in human services.

Expectations of the Community Collaboratives:

Each Collaborative will be expected to:

• Communicate annually their priority goals for the upcoming year and how they are coordinating existing resources and efforts to achieve those goals.
• Collaborate (share ownership and decision making) in the allocation of new and sustaining resources available to the county to address unmet human services needs
• Coordinate community efforts to address State priorities
• Identify barriers to progress that State agencies create.

The majority of Community Collaboratives utilize community needs assessments to direct their work. Community Collaboratives have conducted their own needs assessment or utilized assessments done by member organizations. The community needs assessments have been used by the Community Collaboratives to guide decision-making on funding support for programs/services and to communicate with their elected officials (county commissioners, state legislators).

Organizations, Community Collaboratives utilize workgroups/committees to accomplish their work. This provides the opportunity for all level of staff, consumers, and community represtntavies to:

• plan or implement a system of care, develop a community plan or action plan for a target population,
• to plan to meet a specific need in the community (substance abuse prevention, infant mortality), and/or
• develop community wide initiatives (positive youth development/asset development).

Technical assistance to the local Community Collaborative Coordinators is provided by the Department of Community Health, Mental Health Services to Children and Families to ensure that the Coordinators are able to assist the Community Collaboratives in the duties that they are called upon to fulfill. Training and technical assistance to the coordinators includes statewide and regional technical assistance meetings, as well as new coordinator orientation. Technical assistanc on specific topics is available. The Department of Community Health also provides for training and technical assistance to Community Collaboratives.

Contact: Mary Ludtke (517) 241-5769, Ludtkem@michigan.gov