This current era of high stakes testing, accountability, and shrinking educational budgets demands that schools seek bold and innovative ways to build strong learning environments for all students. Community involvement is a powerful tool in generating resources that are essential for educational excellence. Building School-Community Partnerships: Collaboration for Student Success emphasizes the importance of community involvement for effective school functioning, student support and well-being, and community health and development. This sharp, insightful book serves as an excellent resource for educators seeking to establish school-community partnerships to achieve goals for their schools and the students, families, and communities they serve. Schools can collaborate with a wide variety of community partners to obtain the resources they need to achieve important goals for students’ learning. Some of these partners may include: - Businesses and corporations - Universities and other institutions of higher learning - National and local volunteer organizations - Social service agencies and health partners - Faith-based organizations and institutions Work successfully with community partners to improve school programs and curricula, strengthen families, and expand your students’ learning experiences!

This important book provides a comprehensive survey of different strategies for developing age-friendly communities, and the extent to which older people themselves can be involved in the co-production of age-friendly policies and practices.

The debate over the value of community-based environmental collaboration is one that dominates current discussions of the management of public lands and other resources. In Community-Based Collaboration: Bridging Socio-Ecological Research and Practice, the volume’s contributors offer an in-depth interdisciplinary exploration of what attracts people to this collaborative mode. The authors address the new institutional roles adopted by community-based collaborators and their interaction with existing governance institutions in order to achieve more holistic solutions to complex environmental challenges. Contributors: Heidi L. Ballard, University of California, Davis * Juliana E. Birkhoff, RESOLVE * Charles Curtin, Antioch University * Cecilia Danks, University of Vermont * E. Franklin Dukes, University of Virginia and George Mason University * María Fernández-Giménez, Colorado State University * Karen E. Firehock, University of Virginia * Melanie Hughes McDermott, Rutgers University * William D. Leach, California State University, Sacramento * Margaret Ann Moote, private consultant * Susan L. Senecah, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry * Gregg B. Walker, Oregon State University

Home, School, and Community Collaboration uses the culturally responsive family support model as a framework to prepare teachers to work effectively with children from diverse families. Authors Kathy B. Grant and Julie A. Ray skillfully incorporate numerous real-life vignettes and case studies to show readers the practical application of culturally responsive family engagement. The Fourth Edition contains additional content that enhances the already relevant text, including: a new section titled “Perspectives on Poverty” acknowledging the deep levels of poverty in the United States and the impact on family-school relations; increased coverage of Latino/Latina family connections; and updated demographics focusing on the issues impacting same-sex families, families experiencing divorce, children and family members with chronic illnesses, military families, and grandparents raising children. With contributions from more than 22 experts in the field offering a wide range of perspectives, this book will help readers understand, appreciate, and support diverse families.

"Hank Rubin has fashioned a new and needed vision for collaborative leadership that can work anywhere—especially in schools. Rubin properly argues that public school success is not a top-down enterprise; it is a collaborative one. He reminds us that well-managed relationships and intentional collaboration are essential skills for all school leaders, from those teaching in classrooms to those running state agencies. This is a must-read for teachers and other champions of school policies and practices that support the success of every student." —John Wilson, Executive Director National Education Association "Hank Rubin translates complex, contextually driven processes into digestible bites. The text is compelling, refreshing, and a joy to read." —Chris Ferguson, Program Associate Southwest Educational Development Laboratory "Rubin′s book provides an eloquent and practical articulation of collaborative leadership and its potential to improve the partnership of communities and public schools." —Wendy Caszatt-Allen, Teacher and Author Mid-Prairie Middle School, Kalona, IA Build successful collaborative relationships in your school—and watch resources for student achievement soar! Written to inspire and support educators in becoming transformative, collaborative leaders, this updated edition of a best-selling resource demonstrates how educators can use collaboration skills to help shape school culture and build and maintain strong schoolwide relationships that contribute meaningfully to students′ learning. Visionary Hank Rubin provides a broad overview of collaboration in education and lays the foundation for working with colleagues, establishing strong partnerships, and cooperating with students to achieve goals. Updated with the latest research and filled with practical examples, this resource examines 14 phases of collaboration and helps educators: Understand the knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics necessary to foster successful collaboration Nurture relationships between students and the institutions and individuals associated with learning Build collaborative community relationships that support an instructional agenda Incorporate the study of collaboration and related reflective activities into leadership practice By applying these vital principles of collaboration to their work, educators will discover what a school of collaborative excellence is capable of achieving!

Collaborations, which bring organizations together in a community to implement or improve an innovative program or change a policy or procedure, have become a central strategy for promoting community change. Funders require them; nonprofits see them as useful solutions to their problems of declining resources and increasing complexity (including multicultural issues); and communities demand them as evidence that key stakeholders are coming together to address problems of mutual concern. Moreover, no matter how powerful the concept, the implementation of community collaborations can usually be improved. The evaluation of collaborations can provide evidence of outcome and impact, and can help improve the process by which the collaboration operates. This book was developed by the nonprofit Human Interaction Research Institute,with funding support from the Federal Center for Mental Health Services, in connection with a series of evaluations of mental health, youth violence prevention and arts grant-making programs (supported by both the Federal government and foundations)óall of which involved collaborations as a central mechanism. It is the first comprehensive treatment of theoretical, research, and practice issues concerning the evaluation of collaborations, and includes an extensive set of forms that can be adapted for this purpose. Chapter authors are leaders in both evaluation and community collaboration work.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.