The Inter-agency Services Collaboration Project

“Collaboration” is a major buzzword for the non-profit sector these days – whether the talk is about the sector’s relationship with government funders or about non-profits networking and forming coalitions to coordinate sector activity. Much of the attention is also about agencies collaborating on the ground by sharing resources and information, coordinating services for individual clients, or integrating service planning or programs.

Capacity Building Consultant Joan Roberts and the Wellesley Institute have spent the last year investigating collaboration in on-the-ground health and social service delivery. We have explored the service delivery collaboration already happening in Toronto, as well as what the research literature says about which collaborations improve client health and service quality. We have also been looking at what government does to endorse or promote service delivery collaboration, here in Ontario and in other countries where governments are explicitly committed to helping non-profits become more effective, and to collaborate more effectively.

The end product is The Inter-agency Services Collaboration Project, a collaborative project developed and completed in a roundtable in October 2007. In addition, local funders, government officials, capacity builders and agency heads came together to discuss what governments and non-profits can do to promote service collaborations when and where they work.

THE INTER-AGENCY SERVICES COLLABORATION PROJECT - FULL REPORT


The Inter-agency Services Collaboration Project - Full Report (Note, the full report is 234 pages and may take a few seconds to download)

By Joan Roberts and Pauline O'Connor


Community-Based Collaborations: A Cornerstone of Action on Health Disparities

By Dr. Bob Gardner, Director of Polciy and Research, Wellesley Institute.

THE INTER-AGENCY SERVICES COLLABORATION PROJECT - REPORT BY CHAPETR