 |
Coalition building strategies – 7/1/11
Q: The staff at the Alabama Department of Public Health would like to strengthen their local coalitions and have spent a bit of time reviewing academic resources and guides on coalition building. They are interested in knowing what people in the field are doing to recruit and retain coalition members, especially in a low or no funding environment. Please reply with:
- Tips on successful strategies, especially if you have experience with groups working in rural areas.
- Coalition-building tools that you have developed or used that were very effective.
A:
- California: The following information chronicles some of the capacity building services provided to the local projects to aide their implementation of comprehensive tobacco control programs.
Introduction
California’s Tobacco Control Program requires all Local Lead Agencies (Health Departments) to establish and maintain a viable tobacco control coalition through the involvement and participation of local community organization and priority population representatives. To this end, projects have leeway in establishing objectives in their respective workplans to develop, and/or expand (customize) their coalitions to reflect their particular local need.
Specifically, projects develop asset-based objectives focused on either social capital or cultural competency assets. The social capital assets address the extend that people and organizations work collaboratively in an atmosphere of trust to accomplish mutual interest/goals; and cultural competency assets address behaviors, attitudes, and policies that enable effective work in cross-cultural situations within the work environment and community.
The majority (53%) of our tobacco control-funded projects have developed asset-based objectives in the following areas:
Asset 2.1 (18 objectives)
Number, type, and availability of technical assistance and resources including, but not limited to advocacy, coalition building, participatory community planning, community assessment, community organizing, cessation, countering pro-tobacco influences, enforcement, evaluation, legal, secondhand smoke, social determinants of health, and tobacco availability.
Asset 2.5 (11 objectives)
Amount of community activism among adults to support tobacco control efforts.
Asset 2.7 (20 objectives)
Number and quality of collaborative partnerships with health, education, social, environmental, business, political, and other organizations and agencies to address tobacco control and social determinants of health.
Capacity Building
In 2008, the CTCP established and implemented capacity building services aimed at enhancing and increasing the ability of local projects to effectively and efficiently work with priority populations and the community; and to provide technical assistance and consultation in many areas including how to develop, expand and maintain coalitions. Most recently, our program coordinated and facilitated webinars on Community Asset Mapping (May 23, 2011), and Coalition Building: Rules of Engagement (June 16, 2011), and will host/facilitate a webinar on June 30, 2011 entitled Coalition Building – Drilling Down: Using Coalitions to Change Social Norms.”
Community Asset Mapping
Community Asset Mapping is important in that it educates local programs on how to identify all local resources (individual, institutional, associational, physical, and economic) that might be useful to local programs for coalition inclusion in moving the tobacco control agenda. See www.abcdtraining.org for more details. I’ve also attached the Community Asset Mapping power point presentation along with tools/resources from the training.
Coalition Building
The CTCP conducted a Needs Assessment in the fall of 2010 and identified that our funded projects needed assistance in understanding how to develop coalitions, how to develop community relationships, how to outreach to “hard-to-reach” populations, how to effectively work with priority populations in addressing tobacco as a priority. We specifically tailored the June 16, 2011 coalition building training to focus on the following and a copy of the presentation is attached as well:
- Benefits of Coalitions
- The Art of Relationship Building
- Playground Rules
- Inclusiveness
- Creative Outreach Strategies
- Enticing Hard-to-Reach Populations
- Messaging with Purpose
June 30, 2011 Webinar
Theme: Coalition Building – Drilling Down: Using Coalitions to Change Social Norms
Agenda
- Managing your Scope of Work
- Guiding Principles
- Pouring the Foundation
- Setting the Coalition Tone
- Power Dynamic
- Support vs. Control
- Community Action Model Overview – San Francisco Tobacco Free Project (featuring Mele Lau-Smith)
- Successful Campaigns
- Lessons Learned
- Tools and Resources
Organizational Self-Assessment
Additionally, California’s Tobacco Control Program is currently working with the National Multicultural Institute for the development, implementation, and pilot testing of tools and resources for conducting an organizational cultural competency self-assessment review. Our tools are not yet finalized, but initial feedback from the piloting sites (one of which is rural), has found the organizational self- assessment process to be very beneficial for identifying and expanding local tobacco control partnerships; and for strengthening new and improved collaborative relationships. This process has helped the rural county to identify previously unknown partners, and created new opportunities for inclusive problem solving for local youth issues through the new collaborative efforts.
- Hawaii: The American Cancer Society’s national headquarters in Atlanta has some excellent guidebooks on collaboration with coalition building tools. These were created some years ago, but have recently resurfaced as valuable documents. The contact would be Terry Music, Chief Mission Delivery Officer, or her staff.
Because of difficulty transferring money to our communities, the Hawaii State Department of Health Tobacco Prevention and Education Program has (for the last two years) contracted with the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii to manage and administer the community coalitions. The Coordinators are hired as staff rather than the contracts we used to have with them. We’re a small state, so we only have six: Kauai, Maui, Molokai, Oahu, and two on Hawaii Island.
- Missouri: The Ozark Heart Health project has kept coalitions together for over nineteen years. We have our core group in every county and some of the most important things when working with local coalitions are: trust, respect, and appreciation.
The counties we serve are some of the most impoverished and rural counties in our state. Our faith partners have been very valuable in coalition building and maintaining coalitions. In rural areas where the area of “social” is very limited it seems like most events are held around the area of worship - weddings, parties, trainings, etc. Faith partners are always there for you and are much appreciated here. A great tip to keep in mind is that “volunteers work with you not for you”!
- Texas: Here is the link for our community coalition best practices that was developed for us by the University of Texas.
This will take you to the Community Best Practices main page, the buttons on the left side of the page below “Community Best Practices” are the various chapters within the document.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resources for Further Reading:
Back to Table of Contents
|
|
