V. Building and Maintaining a Partnership

Congratulations! You now have a partnership. The inter-agency meeting gave you and your potential partners the opportunity to ask questions, share information, and clarify what would be involved in forming a partnership to support a family literacy program in your community. At the end of the inter-agency meeting you set a date for the first planning meeting for the new partnership, during which you'll begin to address some of the issues outlined in the rest of this chapter. It is worth a note of caution, however, to point out that the effort it will take to involve the whole group in planning is well worth it.

One of the issues which seemed to be of concern to partners in some programs was not being involved in the actual planning efforts for the partnership. After the initial meeting has been called to determine which agencies and organizations are interested in participating, the planning and organizing activities are conducted by one or only a few of the partners, leaving the others outside the decision-making role. Therefore, roles and responsibilities of all partners are never understood, and cooperation is never attained, reducing the effectiveness of the program.

Seamen et al 1992: 62

Forming an advisory committee
Forming an advisory committee is the next step in building the partnership and an essential step in developing the family literacy program. Once again, involving a broad representation of community members on the advisory committee will ensure creating a sense of meaningful participation, ownership, and commitment from important stakeholders. Depending on the number of people from your initial inter-agency meeting who are interested in forming a partnership, you may need to create a smaller group to act as the advisory committee for the project. Again it bears mentioning that special effort will be needed to ensure the participation of potential clients, parents who are in the best position to identify the need for this type of program, and advise on how the program should be developed to meet those needs.

… certain factors are supportive of active parent participation in meetings with multiple professionals. They include the preparation parents receive before meetings; inclusive language by professionals; a comfortable level of formality; structural elements, such as familiarity of the physical environment; and a balance in the ratio of professionals to parents.

Friedman and Glass in Translating Research
into Practice 1993: 239