Compass Points for Comprehensive, Collaborative Initiatives:

CommunitiesWorking Together to Foster

Resilient and Healthy Labrador

Eric Leviten-Reid & Liz WeaverTamarack: An Institute for Community

EngagementOctober 27, 2009

PurposeComprehensive,

Collaborative Initiatives:

– What are they?– Where did they come from?– What issues do they tackle?– What’s the rationale behind them?– What are some key concepts?– What results are they able to achieve?– What are some ‘rules for the road’?

A bit about us…

• Hamilton• Nonprofit community

organizations• Hamilton Roundtable for

Poverty Reduction• Vibrant Communities

– Systems Change– Coaching

• Informing practice with ideas

• Cape Breton• Community Economic Development• Vibrant Communities

– Policy research – Learning and evaluation

• Informing ideas with practice

A Pan-Canadian initiative exploring comprehensive, multisectoral approaches to poverty reduction

– Launched in 2002 by three national partners• Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement• The Caledon Institute of Social Policy• The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation

– And currently 12 Trail Builder communities across the country

Participating Cities• Abbotsford• Calgary• Edmonton• Hamilton• Montreal• St. John’s

• Saint John• Surrey• Trois-Rivières• Victoria• Winnipeg• Waterloo Region

The Culture We Want to Build in our Communities

An integrated approach

Comprehensive, Collaborative Initiatives:

What are they?A new generation of community work that brings together a wide range of partners to collectively tackle the multiple and interrelated aspects of complex issues.

Diverse Initiatives;Family Resemblance

• Pursue broad, multiple goals • Promote multisectoral collaboration • Combine diverse strategies• Address multiple spheres (e.g., employment, housing) and

levels of action (e.g., individual, family, community, wider systems)

• Involve some form of community empowerment, ownership, participation, leadership and relationship-building

• Are intentionally flexible and responsive to changing local conditions

• Employ a long-term time frame

Where did they come from?

Many Streams

• Social Service Integration

• Community Economic Development

• Social Development• Sustainable

Development• Population Health

Comprehensive Community Initiatives

• US• Late 1980s• High poverty inner city

neighbourhoods– Response to deep cuts in

government funding– Rejuvenate community

development by combining lessons from earlier rounds of community work

• Ford Foundation– Neighbourhood and

Family Initiative• Annie E. Casey

Foundation– Re-building Communities

Initiative• Aspen Institute– Roundtable on

Comprehensive Community Initiatives

What issues do they tackle?Theme Initiative

Health Healthy Communities

Safety Community Safety and Crime Prevention Program

Environment Atlantic Coastal Action Program

Aboriginal People Urban Aboriginal Strategy

Homelessness Supporting Community Partners Initiative

Immigrants and Refugees

Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council

Children and Youth Saskatoon Communities for Children

What’s the rationale behind them?

A reaction to so called ‘categorical programs’ that tend to direct energy and resources to isolated aspects of a problem

In contrast, CCIs operate on the premise that ‘joined up problems’ require ‘joined up solutions’

These initiatives emerged in response to accumulating evidence that services meant to improve the life prospects of the poor were often proving ineffective – at least in part because they were so fragmented.

They rejected the tendency to address issues such as poverty, employment, health, crime, education and housing in isolation from one another.

Instead, they endorsed the idea that multiple and interrelated problems require multiple and interrelated solutions.

-Lisbeth Schorr, Common Purpose

What are some key concepts?

COMPREHENSIVENESS

COLLABORATION

COMPLEXITY

RESILIENCE

An important lesson from much previous work had been that it unfolded in a piecemeal fashion: good programs for social services, economic

development, and physical revitalization existed, but they were implemented in isolation from one another. The comprehensiveness theme of CCIs

recognized that individual, family, and community circumstances were linked, and by linking our

responses to those circumstances we could create a whole response that was more than the sum of

its parts.

-Anne Kubisch et. al.Voices from the Field

Comprehensiveness

Innovation Challenge

Governance Challenge

Robustness Challenge

Coordination Challenge

Completeness

ChallengeElements missing?

Linked effectively?

Adequately resourced?

Adjusted over time in relation to one

another?

Combined in creative ways?

Five Comprehensiveness Challenges

Collaboration

• In order to address multiple dimensions of an issue, the participation of individuals and organizations knowledgeable about and active in various areas is required.

• Collaboration allows partner to combine their knowledge, resources and know-how in new and better ways.

Roles for Different Sectors

Business Sector • Expertise, credibility and

voice, connections, funding and other resources, leadership

Government Sector • Expertise, connections to

elected officials, funding and other resources, policy change, leadership

Social Sector • Expertise, experience on

the ground, service delivery, ability to ramp up change efforts

Citizens with Lived Experience • Expertise about the issues,

practical and relevant solution, leadership, connections to other citizens

Taking Collaboration to a New Level

Funders and communities are often weighed down by past ways of working – such as fragmented problems, fragmented resources, uncoordinated public policies, and turf protection – that are no longer very helpful. What is needed instead is to work at a systems level, crossing artificial boundaries of sectors and programs so community problems can be addressed in a comprehensive way.

-Jay Connor Community Visions, Community Solutions

Taking Collaboration to a New Level

Conceptually…• ‘Shifting attention from the

frog to the ecosystem’

Practically…•New Infrastructure–‘community support

organization’•New Modes of Leadership–‘leading between’–‘adaptive leadership’

Complex Problems

• Complex problems are not just more complicated than other problems; they are different in kind.

• It isn’t the number of elements they involve but the dynamic relationship among those elements.

• As a result, they can’t be tackled effectively with the same techniques as other problems.

• New attitudes and practices are needed that enable a wide range of participants, each involved with different parts of the problem, to continuously adjust and re-adjust how they affect one another through the decisions and actions they take.

Managing ComplexityTRADITIONAL

RESPONSECHARACTERISTICS

OF COMPLEX ISSUESADAPTIVE RESPONSE

Specialization Multiple Root Causes

Orchestration

Silos Multiple Stakeholders Cross Boundary

Crisp Problem Definition

Difficult to Frame Working Framework

Plan the Work, Work the Plan

Emergent Act, React and Adapt

Resolve Paradoxes & Dilemmas Cope

Standardized and Detailed Blueprint

Unique Minimum Specs,Variation &

Customization

Short Term Intractable Long Term

Resilience

The degree to which the system can build capacity for learning and adaptation.

– Health – Resilience in a New Key

The Resilience Approach

Resilience

Opportunity

Engagement

Adaptation

Sustenance

Excerpt from Sherri Torjman. (2006). Shared space: The Communities Agenda. Ottawa: Caledon Institute of Social Policy, September.

What results are these initiatives able to achieve?

• Outcome tracking is vital but challenging– Multifaceted, evolutionary and long-term

• Bottom-line outcomes for individuals/families are not the only focus

• Cumulative and reinforcing impact is critical

Expanding Working Relationships

COLLABORATIVE FUNCTIONS

Strategic Focus• Information sharing • Research• Priority setting & planning• Evaluation & learning

Supporting Local Action• Social marketing• Technical assistance &

coaching• Access to funding• Lobbying & advocacy• Facilitation and brokering• Peer learning• Direct project management

MULTIPLE CHANGES

• New, expanded programs or services

• Improved public policies

• Adjusted practices of local organizations

• Better information sharing

• Greater-smarter investments

• More local capacity• More hope• Greater sense of

personal and collective efficacy

CASCADINGOUTCOMES

People Outcomes• Increased income and assets • Improved education• Improved housing• Reduced crime• Stronger social networks• Improved health

Organizational Outcomes• Improved skills and knowledge related to

issue• Expanded resources• Stronger commitment to work on the issue• Increased partnerships• New programs & services

Community Outcomes• Stronger collaboration• Multi sector relationships• Adjusted policies• Increased public awareness• More vibrant communities• Increased participation and inclusion• Increased prosperity and productivity

How the network builds outcomes

‘Rules for the Road’• Be clear about the ‘problem’ you want to solve

• Define clear goals and targets

• Be prepared to learn as you go; don’t expect to follow a straight line

• Mobilize partners around shared aspirations

• Find the synergies from working across sectors, issues and levels of action

• Don’t hold out for the perfect plan; start somewhere and build from

there.