Collaborative Initiatives

Melaville, Blank, and Asayech (1993) define collaborative initiatives:

"A collaborative is a group of community leaders who have agreed to be partners in addressing shared problems. The collaborative undertakes an initiative--a series of interrelated activities designed to solve these shared problems and create a new system of services for children and families....Partners using a collaborative strategy establish common goals and agree to use their personal and institutional power to achieve them. Partners must have the authority to speak for their institutions or the segments of the community they represent. They agree to commit resources and alter existing policies and procedures to attain measurable goals and objectives. They accept individual and collective responsibility for outcomes....It is collaboration, far more than cooperation, that offers the possibility of real service integration...." (p. 15)

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