Engagement and action for health: the contribution of leaders' collaborative skills to partnership success

A Tailored Approach to Launch Community Coalitions Focused on Achieving Structural Changes: Lessons Learned From a HIV Prevention Mobilization Study

Public health HIV prevention efforts have begun to focus on addressing social and structural factors contributing to HIV risk, such as unstable housing, unemployment, and access to health care. With a limited body of evidence-based structural interventions for HIV, communities tasked with developing structural changes need a defined process to clarify their purpose and goals. This article describes the adaptations made to a coalition development model with the purpose of improving the start-up phase for a second group of coalitions. Modifications focused on preparing coalitions to more efficiently apply structural change concepts to their strategic planning activities, create more objectives that met study goals, and enhance coalition procedures such as building distributed coalition leadership to better support the mobilization process. We report on primary modifications to the process, findings for the coalitions, and recommendations for public health practitioners who are seeking to start a similar coalition.

Gerontological nursing leadership in the Advancing Excellence Campaign: moving interdisciplinary collaboration forward

Nursing was not a part of the coalition of multiple nursing home stakeholders at the roll out of the Advancing Excellence Campaign (AEC). In January 2007, several nurse organizations proactively approached the AEC leadership, were welcomed and immediately began to volunteer for leadership positions such as committee chairs and conference coordinators. This paper presents an exemplar of how a proactive stance, even when not initially included, allowed nurses to secure chairs at the decision making table of this quality campaign and contribute to improved resident outcomes.

Networking between community health programs: a case study outlining the effectiveness, barriers and enablers

Background

In India, since the 1990s, there has been a burgeoning of NGOs involved in providing primary health care. This has resulted in a complex NGO-Government interface which is difficult for lone NGOs to navigate. The Uttarakhand Cluster, India, links such small community health programs together to build NGO capacity, increase visibility and better link to the government schemes and the formal healthcare system. This research, undertaken between 1998 and 2011, aims to examine barriers and facilitators to such linking, or clustering, and the effectiveness of this clustering approach.

Methods

Interviews, indicator surveys and participant observation were used to document the process and explore the enablers, the barriers and the effectiveness of networks improving community health.

Results

The analysis revealed that when activating, framing, mobilising and synthesizing the Uttarakhand Cluster, key brokers and network players were important in bridging between organisations. The ties (or relationships) that held the cluster together included homophily around common faith, common friendships and geographical location and common mission. Self interest whereby members sought funds, visibility, credibility, increased capacity and access to trainings was also a commonly identified motivating factor for networking. Barriers to network synthesizing included lack of funding, poor communication, limited time and lack of human resources. Risk aversion and mistrust remained significant barriers to overcome for such a network.

Conclusions

In conclusion, specific enabling factors allowed the clustering approach to be effective at increasing access to resources, creating collaborative opportunities and increasing visibility, credibility and confidence of the cluster members. These findings add to knowledge regarding social network formation and collaboration, and such knowledge will assist in the conceptualisation, formation and success of potential health networks in India and other developing world countries.

The role of leadership and management in six southern public health partnerships: a study of member involvement and satisfaction

Research has led to greater understanding of what is needed to create and sustain well-functioning public health partnerships. However, a partnership's ability to foster an environment that encourages broad member involvement in discussions, decision making, and activities has received scant empirical attention. This study examined the relationship between partnership members' perceptions of how well leadership and management facilitated their involvement, and their satisfaction with their role and influence within the partnership. Data came from 60 individuals who participated in two waves of a quantitative process evaluation of six southern interorganizational partnerships, formed as part of a national pilot project to increase cervical and breast cancer screening rates. Results suggested that environments fostering broad partner involvement were associated with measures of member satisfaction, controlling for other partnership characteristics. Findings indicated that facilitation of member involvement deserves increased consideration from researchers and practitioners as an indicator of the quality of partnership functioning.

Municipalities collaborating in public health: the Danish Smoking Prevention and Cessation Partnership

This study explored the Smoking Prevention and Cessation Partnership (SPCP) which builds upon a collaboration between two Danish municipalities targeted at the prevention of tobacco smoking. The aim of the study was to describe the processes of SPCP, to examine the difficulties this collaboration faced, and to assess how these experiences could be used to improve future partnership collaboration. We employed qualitative methodology comprising 12 semi-structured one-to-one interviews with SPCP’s stakeholders and an analysis of the partnership documents and reports. The findings suggested that the main potentials of the partnership were the personal relations between the members and stakeholders with the possibilities of the creation of new connections with other actors. Barriers to successful partnership building were the implementation of the new Local Government Reform as a competing task, and that the two municipalities were heterogenic in respect to organizational issues and working methods. Other impediments included the lack of continuity in leadership, the lack of clarity regarding the form of collaboration and roles, as well as different expectations of the stakeholders. We conclude that four factors remain critical for partnerships. The first is the clarity of the collaborative effort. Second, partnerships need to take into account the structural circumstances and culture/value systems of all stakeholders. Third is the impact of contextual factors on the development of the partnership; and the fourth factor is the bearing of personal/individual factors on the partnership e.g., personal engagement in the project. Early attention to these four factors could contribute to more effective partnership working.