Community Collaboration          

Introduction by Bonnie Benard

"It has become increasingly clear to the prevention field that collaborative, community-wide efforts are essential if we are to actually create the positive, supportive, and nurturing environments that will, in turn, discourage alcohol and drug abuse and other social problems like teen pregnancy, child abuse, delinquency school failure, and dropping out. These problems are not only interrelated but share common roots that lie in the community as a whole and not only to a few institutions of the community, such as the family and the school.

"This growing awareness of social problems as community problems is not only witnessed in the developing consensus on the part of policy makers, advocates, and public- and private-sector organizations and foundations that only community-wide solutions can solve community-wide problems, but actualized in the thousands of communities across our nation who have mobilized to work together to solve problems like alcohol and drug abuse. Collaboration, defined as a group of individuals who work together on common goals (creating healthy environments in order to reduce alcohol and drug abuse, for example), is a process that exemplifies the principles of prevention philosophy: empowerment, mutual problem solving and decision making, and mutual respect. In fact, the very process of collaboration, of coming together out of mutual concern and agreeing to work together, is doing prevention, for we're actually creating a more supportive environment by this action.

"Through the process of involving representatives form all sectors of the community, problems will more likely be addressed at their source and not just dealt with symptomatically. As Ann Lieberman states, "None of us, no matter what our position, has the answers to the complex problems we face. The more people work together, the more we have the possibility of better understanding these complex problems and acting on them in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect."

This section showcases five excellent articles on the importance of community collaboration to prevention efforts. Also featured in Hot Quotes are examples of collaboration efforts in Washington State.

Collaboration Fosters Creative Problem Solving

Collaboration Can Help Foster Kid’s Resiliency

Schools Should Celebrate Multi-cultural Salad

Quality of Relationship is Key to Mentoring

Adolescent Society

"Gathering together in a group is an ideal way to identify influences affecting all individuals in your community. It is easiest to begin with a small number of people who share some of your concerns and points of view." (Changing Times, Changing Minds, a handbook for working together to understand and create influences for positive impact in your community, school, workplace and home, 1997. e-mail: PosMoves@aol.com.)

"Rather, as in any successful change effort, we must ‘think globally’ but ‘act locally,’ starting ‘where we are with what we got.’ This means taking action right in our own schools and communities."(Schools should celebrate multi-cultural ‘salad,’ Bonnie Benard, Turning the corner from risk to resiliency, Western Center News, June, 1991)

"Collaboration, defined as a group of individuals who work together on common goals (creating healthy environments in order to reduce alcohol and drug use, for example), is a process that exemplifies the principles of prevention philosophy: empowerment, mutual problem solving and decision making, and mutual respect. In fact, the very process of collaboration, of coming together out of mutual concern and agreeing to work together, is doing prevention, for we’re actually creating a more supportive environment by this action." (Collaboration Fosters Creative Problem Solving, Bonnie Benard, Turning the corner from risk to resiliency, Western Center News, March, 1991)

"As Ann Lieberman states, ‘None of us, no matter what our position, has the answers to the complex problems we face. The more people work together, the more we have the possibility of better understanding these complex problems and acting on them in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect.’"(Collaboration Fosters Creative Problem Solving, Bonnie Benard, Turning the corner from risk to resiliency, Western Center News, March, 1991)

"...a major underlying cause of the development of social problems can be traced to the gradual destruction of naturally occurring social networks in the community." Prevention Should Emphasize Protective Factors, Bonnie Benard, Western Center News, September 1991)

"While volumes can be written (and have!) on just how to go about this (building community networks) the strategies are fairly simple and reflect not a need for behavioral interventions as much as for an attitude change - a willingness to share power within a system, to create a system based on reciprocity and sharing rather than on control." (Prevention Should Emphasize Protective Factors, Bonnie Benard, Western Center News, September 1991)

"We also must work to build linkages between families and schools and between schools and communities. It is only at this inter-system level - and only through inter-system collaboration within our communities - that we can build a broad enough, intense enough network of protection for all children and all families." (Prevention Should Emphasize Protective Factors, Bonnie Benard, Western Center News, September 1991)

"As community development specialist John McKnight explains: ‘Our greatest assets are our people. But people in low-income neighborhoods are seldom regarded as ‘assets.’ Instead, they are usually seen as needy and deficient, suited best for life as clients and recipients of services. Therefore, they are often subjected to systematic and repeated inventories of their deficiencies with a device called a ‘needs survey.’ The starting point for any serious development effort is the opposite of an accounting of deficiencies.’" (Resiliency Requires Changing Hearts and Minds, Bonnie Benard, Western Center News)

"Standing with the community is one strong way of showing childrent hat their teachers care and are willing to take risks for them, instead of dubbing them ‘at risk’ (Educator and writer Herb Kohl quoted in Resiliency Requires Changing Hearts and Minds, Bonnie Benard, Western Center News)

Examples of Community Collaboration in Washington State:

"Called Project Safe Areas for Everyone, the program will bring police officers and social workers right into high-crime areas to help parents set up community centers like the one at Surrey Lane, said TOGETHER! director Earlyse Swift. ...'Thurston County has a lot of services, but a lot of people don't know how to get them.' Swift said. 'We need to go where the people are.'" (Project keeps kids busy, criminals out, Olympian, August 13, 1998)

"Thanks to efforts initiated by 10th Street residents, the daily drug activity has basically disappeared from Koch’s south Auburn neighborhood." (Neighbors won their war on drugs, Bellevue Eastside Journal, January 26, 1998)

"‘You can survive more in here than on the street" said Chris Coleman, 14, who frequents the Park Lake/White Center Boys & Girls Club. ‘You feel safer on a basketball court than on the street. If I wasn’t here, I’d probably be on the street doing something, maybe playing with kids who might be drug dealers, or I’d just stay home.’" (Report on state kids a dismal one, Seattle Times, September 23, 1996)

"Chuck Wagner who will counsel youngsters for the Suquamish Tribe beginning next month, says it’s boredom more than anything else that seems to drive kids to drug and alcohol use. Wagner, who grew up in North Kitsap, said there were more things for kids to do there in the 1970s. ‘Now everything’s kind of down in Silverdale,’ he said. That’s one reason the tribe decided to open a Youth Center and service complex in downtown Suquamish and open it to the whole community. ...There will be youth operated snack bar and game room downstairs, plus a computer room and other educational services available upstairs. ... ‘It will be one-stop shopping for the kids,’ Wagner said. (Places of healing, The S’Klallam and Suquamish tribes are opening their doors to young people throughout the community in need of alcohol and drug treatment, December 22, 1997)

"More than 100 angry South Hill residents showed up Tuesday night at Ballou Junior High School to tell owners of the neighborhood’s first so-called head shop, Silk & Smoke to sell something else." (South Hill residents assail head shop’ owner, county, The News Tribune, December 17, 1997)