Successful efforts at systemic reform to overcome the failures created by fragmented services must adopt a holistic vision that emphasizes building nurturing communities…. (However) there are 'deeper structural failures to confront' when attempting to provide more effective services…. These failings, in turn, stem from a normative problem: the loss of the idea that 'a significant social policy aim is embodied in the notion of community, of a social infrastructure that embodies stability and security and shared values.'

Mawhinney 1993: 44

Participation by key stakeholders
By involving key stakeholders in the partnership, you can ensure that decisions and activities receive widespread support and recognition (Kunesh and Farley).

Perhaps there needs to be a distinction made between token participation and real participation. Agency members may attend partnership meetings for many reasons (being delegated by a superior, because collaborating with other agencies is required, because they said they would), but this doesn’t ensure that they will contribute in a valuable way to the process. Cairney (1994) points out that participation does not necessarily mean partnership. Again, there needs to be a commitment to the process of collaborating; as Irwin explains (1994: 10), there must be the belief that the “return” on coalition and participation far outweigh the “cost” of involvement in a partnership. This belief and commitment must be present in all levels of member agencies, and in particular at the administrative or senior management level (Kunesh and Farley, Seamen 1992, Bradford 1993).

There should also be significant, active roles for all partners. Jeffers and Olebe (1994: 7) recommend active roles for not just the service agencies but also for the government agencies and businesses that support the project. This way they will “see the problems first-hand, develop a stake in the solution, and deliver more support toward its resolution.”

Parents are a particularly important stakeholder whose participation is essential. Research in community-based programming tells us that the potential clients of a program are in the best position to identify needs the program should address, and what the best means of delivering the program are. Recruiting parents/families into the partnership may be challenging, but the resulting feelings of ownership and contribution will go a long way towards ensuring that the program developed will be appropriate and effective (Cairney 1994, Atmore 1993, Russo and Lindle 1993, Rasinski and Padak 1994, Friedman & Glass in Translating Research into Practice 1993). Having community agencies help you approach and gain input from their clients, as discussed in Chapter IV, is one means of gaining access to those stakeholders.