1-062 - Research-Practice Partnerships within Comprehensive Community Initiatives: How-to (and how not-to-do)

Session Type: Coffee Hour

Integrative Statement

Comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs) are locally organized, multi-sector collaborations that build the capacity of a particular place to coordinate public resources, mobilize previously untapped family, cultural, and community-based resources, and design social interventions that lead to better population-level outcomes (Kubisch et al., 2011). Despite the variation in terminology (e.g., Promise Neighborhoods, collective impact), CCIs employ the philosophy that improved population-level outcomes for children and families can best be achieved by engaging multiple community systems, structures, and constituencies that coalesce around a common goal and work in concert to achieve that goal (Zaff, Donlan, Pufall Jones, Lin & Anderson, 2016). CCIs have gained momentum over the past decade, with national non-profits, Federal agencies, and even consultancies fueling a movement to create systemic change. CCI exemplars tend to have strong learning and evaluation systems that are responsive to the needs of the community. Often, external researchers, whether at a local university or an independent research institution, provide the research infrastructure. This workshop is designed for researchers who want to learn how to create and/or optimize these research-practice partnerships. The workshop will be led by two research centers that have been involved in multiple CCI research-practice partnerships and can talk about promising practices – and practices to avoid. The workshop will offer an overview of CCIs and the tenets of research-practice partnerships, followed by role-play exercises that will surface the dynamics of learning and improvement that are unique to CCIs.

Leaders: Amy Gerstein, Jorge de Velasco, Jonathan Zaff, Elizabeth Pufall Jones

Sub Unit

• SECC Coffee Hours

Leaders

• Jonathan Zaff, Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development

• Elizabeth Pufall Jones, Center for Promise

• Amy Gerstein, John W. Gardener Center at Stanford University

• Jorge de Velasco, John W. Gardner Center at Stanford University