Interagency Collaboration Toolkit
Use this toolkit to help build connections between agencies, families, businesses, and organizations. You can also use it as a planning tool with a student in concert with person-centered planning. The toolkit has examples, articles, templates, and checklists.
Getting started
If you’re brand new to this kind of collaboration, start by developing a list of all community partners and service providers and their contact information. Identify a person at the high school to act as contact person for community partners and service providers. Tool: agency contact list tool
Create an interagency advisory group of school staff, families, community partners and service providers. Clearly articulate the roles and responsibilities of the group around communication methods, information sharing protocols, referral protocols, service and task responsibilities. Tool: agreement form templates
Nurture your collaboration. Create opportunities for partners to learn from each other using existing networks. Spread existing and new knowledge. Be responsive to partner desires to become involved in school policy and procedure development. Reflect and evaluate with partners about progress and celebrate achievements.
Deeper understanding
Cultural Sensitivity
Cultural Sensitivity: Respect for People’s Strength, Culture and Knowledge is a set of PowerPoint slides from New York State that gives a good overview of cultural sensitivity.
Secondary Transition and Cultural Diversity is a free online training module from the Transition Coalition. It covers factors or characteristics that specifically affect families from culturally diverse or minority backgrounds, that make home-school communication “a whole different ballgame.” Study Guide (PDF, 10 pages, 2015)
World Culture Encyclopedia gives overviews of history and culture of the countries of the world.
Community Resources, Supports and Services
Use a bubble diagram and chart to develop your local agency contact list.
Find who has received federal funding for programs that serve youth and their families in your community. Interactive mapping tool, Map My Community, from youth.gov.
Resources for Building Community Partnerships, examples and strategies for fostering successful partnerships, from Edutopia.org.
Partnership Roles & Meeting Essentials
Overview of interagency agreements from NCSET. What are the components of successful interagency agreements, and how can they be implemented?
The Seven Norms of Collaboration help to ensure productive conversation. Pick one of these to focus on at each meeting. One-page summary of Norms (PDF), Norms of Collaboration Toolkit
Sample agreement forms to use as templates. One is for working with an agency, three are for working with employers.
Community-wide Issues & Evaluations
SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results) analysis focuses on current strengths and a vision of the future. It is a positive, participative approach to strategy development that involves those who will impact AND those who will be impacted. More explanation of SOAR analysis
What is SOAR Analysis? Overview and tips from GroupMap.
The Community Tool Box is a free online resource for those working to build healthier communities and bring about social change. It offers thousands of pages of tips and tools for taking action in communities. Toolkits for key activities.
Collaboration Resources
A Guide to Developing Collaborative School-Community-Business Partnerships (PDF, 31 pages, 2015) covers getting started, convening the partners, strategies for engaging key partners including families, and sustaining the partnerships.
Transition Teaming: 26 Strategies for Interagency Collaboration (book, 162 pages, 2014) provides a step-by-step process and concrete strategies.
New content 2-25-22
Pinterest version of toolkit
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