National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools

Thanks Pam for your welcome. I hope this will help me and my community to continue to network with those we met at the Workshop. Everyone is buzzing now with H1N1 so we some may need a reminder to visit this site for building partnerships help, maybe in January? My question is: there was reference at the workshop to Lasker's model of community development. Can you direct me to the best source for this model?

Hi - yes, there is a tool that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of community partnerships - it's by Lasker.

The “Partnership Self-Assessment Tool” was developed using the “Partnership Synergy Framework” (Lasker, et al., 2001) to provide a measurement of the key indicators for successful collaboration and level of synergy.

If you are interested in more information about this tool, click here

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for a direct link to the actual tool.
If you have any questions, let me know.
Pam

I really liked the article: "Partnership Synergy: A Practical Famework for Studying and Strengthening the Collaborative Advantage" by Lasker, Weiss and Miller (2001). This article is listed in NCCMT resources.
I was able to identify aspects from the article that we experienced in our present partnerships. I wish I had known of this earlier in our partnership formation.

Another article that was also informative is: "Making the Most of Collaboration: Exploring the Relationship Between Partnership Synergy and Partnership Functioning" by Weiss, Miller Anderson, Lasker (2002)."

The Partnership Assessment Tool is very comprehensive. I have not formally used it but I think it would help partnerships in improving functioning.

Hi Trish,

Thanks for sharing the additional reference. I just tried to get a copy to post for others but it's not available free so I have added inthe complete reference for anyone who is interested. I have also added in the abstract for quick review.

Making the most of collaboration: exploring the relationship between partnership synergy and partnership functioning.
Health Educ Behav 29(6):683-98 (2002)

Elisa S Weiss, Rebecca Miller Anderson and Roz D Lasker

Division of Public Health, The New York Academy of Medicine, New York 10029, USA. eweiss@nyam.org

Considering the challenges inherent to collaboration and the time it takes to achieve measurable outcomes, partnerships need a way to determine, at an early stage, whether they are making the most of collaboration. The authors have developed a new measure, partnership synergy, which assesses the degree to which a partnership's collaborative process successfully combines its participants' perspectives, knowledge, and skills. This article reports the results of a national study designed to examine the relationship between partnership synergy and six dimensions of partnership functioning: leadership, administration and management, partnership efficiency, nonfinancial resources, partner involvement challenges, and community-related challenges. Data were collected from 815 informants in 63 partnerships. Results of regression analysis conducted with partnership-level data indicated that partnership synergy was most closely related to leadership effectiveness and partnership efficiency. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed. | PMID: 12456129

Thanks for these references. Any other tools for assessing partnerships that people have used?

Hi Susan,
I have a two articles listed below that provide insights into evaluating partnerships. One has a tool included. I would also look at the references listed in these articles as they include other resources, including tools and websites. I think the THCU may have some partnership resources but I think the focus is on engaging partners.

Butterfoss, Frances Dunn. Evaluating Partnerships to Prevent and Manage Chronic Disease. Preventing Chronic Disease 2009; 6(2).


Butterfoss, Frances D., Francisco, Vincent T. Evaluating Community Partnerships and Coalitions with Practitioners in mind. Health Promotion Practice April 2004 Vol. 5, No. 2, 108-114.

I would like to pose some questions in relation to policy. As Public Health Practitioners, a goal is to advocate for healthy public policies.

1. How can Public Health Practitioners advocate for policies as municipally paid employees?

2. How can we balance the advocacy role towards policy while maitaining community driven initiatives. PH has mandates and the evidence for chronic disease prevention by addressing the SDOH but the community may see other needs that do not align with our mandates. How do we work together towards policies?