Linking At-Risk Students and Schools to Integrated Services

Critical Issue: Linking At-Risk Students and Schools to Integrated Services

Otis Johnson

Otis Johnson, director of the Chatham-Savannah Youth Futures Authority, in Chatham County, Georgia, talks about the importance of developing a community vision. [Audio file, 253k] Excerpted from the video series Schools That Work: The Research Advantage, videoconference #8, Integrating Community Services (NCREL, 1992).

"I think one of the things that helps collaboration happen is that you have to develop a community vision of what you want out of this collaboration and then that begins to let you see that you can't achieve this vision by yourself. One agency simply can't do it, but working together and getting past the turf issues, we all can achieve the outcome we want, but the vision piece is very important up front in the beginning."

This Critical Issue was researched and written by Atelia Melaville, consultant and co-author of Together We Can: A Guide for Crafting a Profamily System of Education and Human Services (U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1993), as well as past senior associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy.

Date posted: 1996