The Power of Collaborative Solutions
Six Principles and Effective Tools for Building Healthy Communities
1. Edition March 2010
320 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Short Description
Our helping systems are failing us and we have serious problems with traditional community problem-solving methods that are ineffective and create pain, waste, and dysfunction in our communities. In this groundbreaking book, the author spells out his real-world-tested key principles for creating collaborative solutions that build healthy communities. Collaborative Solutions is a practical book that addresses how to solve contemporary social problems by bringing people of diverse circumstances and backgrounds together in working to solve community challenges. Filled with stories and tools, it shows how to make change happen in the real world.
Our helping systems are failing us and we have serious problems with traditional community problem-solving methods that are ineffective and create pain, waste, and dysfunction in our communities. In this groundbreaking book, the author spells out his real-world-tested key principles for creating collaborative solutions that build healthy communities. Collaborative Solutions is a practical book that addresses how to solve contemporary social problems by bringing people of diverse circumstances and backgrounds together in working to solve community challenges. Filled with stories and tools, it shows how to make change happen in the real world.
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
The Author.
Chapter 1 Why Collaborative Solutions? How Our Helping Systems Are Failing Us.
Community Solutions Demand a New, Collaborative Approach.
How Our Traditional Community Problem-Solving Methods Fail.
What Does This Tell Us, and What Do We Do Next?
Chapter 2 Building Healthy Communities through Collaborative Solutions: An Overview of Six Key Principles.
1. Encourage True Collaboration as the Form of Exchange.
2. Engage the Full Diversity of the Community, Especially Those Most Directly Affected.
3. Practice Democracy and Promote Active Citizenship and Empowerment.
4. Employ an Ecological Approach That Builds on Community Strengths.
5. Take Action by Addressing Issues of Social Change and Power on the Basis of a Common Vision.
6. Engage Spirituality as Your Compass for Social Change.
Community Story: The Cleghorn Neighborhood Center.
Chapter 3 Encouraging True Collaboration.
Networking.
Coordination.
Cooperation.
Collaboration.
Learning to Collaborate: Risks, Resources, Rewards, and Responsibilities.
What If. . . .
Community Story: The North Quabbin Community Coalition.
Chapter 4 Engaging the Full Diversity of the Community.
Mini-Grants.
Leadership Development.
Community Outreach Workers.
Community Organizers.
Experiment with Simple Options to Engage Community Members.
Community Story: The Mayor's Task Force on Deinstitutionalization.
Chapter 5 Practicing Democracy.
How Much Participation Do We Want?
How Do We Encourage Democratic Participation?
More Ways to Support the Practice of Democracy.
Community Story: Valuing Our Children.
Chapter 6 Employing an Ecological Approach That Builds on Community Strengths.
Assets and Deficits.
Setting the Stage to Move from Assets to Action.
Healthy Communities: A Model Ecological Approach.
Healthy Communities in Action.
Community Stories: The Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and the Lower/Outer Cape Community Coalition.
Community Story: The Institute for Community Peace and the Santa Barbara Pro-Youth Coalition.
Chapter 7 Taking Action and Working for Social Change.
Key Factors for Coalitions in Successfully Creating Community Change.
Creating a Common Vision.
Community Action to Create Community Change.
Addressing Issues of Social Change and Power.
Addressing Issues of Social Change in Collaborative Efforts.
Power-Based Versus Relationship-Based Social Change.
Barack Obama's Election and the Future of Collaborative Solutions.
Community Story: Health Access Networks.
Chapter 8 Engaging Spirituality as Your Compass for Social Change.
What Really Works?
The Current Helping System: How It Is Stuck, and How We Can Free It.
Overcoming the Limitations with the Help of Spiritual Principles.
It's Profound, It's Not Easy . . . but It's Within Our Reach.
Community Story: Bringing It All Back to Earth: The Spiritual. Essence of a Regular Meeting of the North Quabbin Community. Coalition.
Conclusion.
Appendix Evaluation: Assessing Our Progress and Celebrating Our Success.
Questions an Evaluation Can Help Answer.
Community Participation in Evaluation.
Frameworks for Evaluating Coalitions.
Documentation and Evaluation in Action: Community Stories.
Conclusion.
References.
Index.
