1. Coalition-Building in American Indian Communities
Open with welcome and proceed with following discussion:
October 13, 2011
Albert Gay, M.S.

2. Objectives To define “coalition” To explain the purpose of a coalition
To list community groups that should be “at the table”
To identify barriers and plan around them
To improve coalition recruitment and retention

3. How Do You Define a Coalition?
CADCA defines coalitions as a formal arrangement for collaboration between groups or sectors of a community, in which each group retains its identity but all agree to work together toward a common goal of building a safe, healthy, and drug-free community.

4. Here’s What Coalitions are NOT:
Not human service organizations
Not single entities
Not run by outside organizations

5. Purpose of Coalitions
To serve as catalysts for change in the community
That goal often includes one of the following:
Adapting, creating, or developing public policy
Influencing the community’s behavior
Creating a healthy community
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America

6. Here’s What Coalitions Do:
Connect with their community members on a grassroots level.
Collaborate on problem-solving and community development.

7. Here’s Why Coalitions Form
To address an urgent situation demanding action
To acquire or provide services
To deliver effective and efficient practices, policies, and programs

8. Here’s Why Coalitions Form (cont’d.)
To provide resources
To facilitate communication among groups
To strategically plan community-wide initiatives

9. Here’s Why Coalitions Form (cont’d.)
To foster leverage within the community
To create and sustain social change

10. Coalitions & The Public Health Model
Host
Environment
Agent
This model requires coalitions to think in a comprehensive manner beyond the part of the problem they see.
Model requires coalitions to think in a comprehensive manner beyond the part of the problem they see.
The model stresses that problems arise through the relationships and interactions among the agent, the host, and the environment.

11. Coalitions & The Public Health Model (cont’d.)
Host
Environment
Agent
Problems arise through the relationships and interactions among the agent, the host, and the environment.
Model requires coalitions to think in a comprehensive manner beyond the part of the problem they see.
The model stresses that problems arise through the relationships and interactions among the agent, the host, and the environment.

12. The Influence of Coalitions
Influencing the HOST
Reaching people directly through schools, social programs, workplaces, daycare centers, religious organizations, and other groups.
Influencing the AGENT
Working to diminish impact of the substance.
Influence the HOST
Reach people directly through schools, social programs, workplaces, day care centers, religious organizations, and other groups.
Influence the AGENT
The agent in the public health model is the substance.
Influence the ENVIRONMENT
Reinforce healthy behaviors in Environments of schools, families, neighborhoods, and communities, as well as broader social and cultural settings.

13. The Influence of Coalitions (cont’d.)
Influencing the ENVIRONMENT
Reinforcing healthy behaviors in schools, families, neighborhoods, and communities, as well as broader social and cultural settings.

14. Risk & Protection
Risk Factor
Domain
Protective Factor
Poverty (-)
Community
Strong Neighborhood Attachment (+)
Identifying and understanding the risk and protective factors in your community provides a solid base from which to begin planning.
An important goal of prevention coalitions is to change the balance so protective factors outweigh risk factors.
Identifying and understanding the risk and protective factors in your community provides a solid base from which to begin planning.
An important goal of prevention coalitions is to change the balance so protective factors outweigh risk factors.

15. Who Should Be at the Table?
Youth
Parents
Businesses
Media
Schools
Youth-Serving Organizations
Law Enforcement
Faith-based Community
Civic and Volunteer Groups
Health Care Professionals

16. Who Should Be at the Table? (cont’d.)
Schools
Youth-Serving Organizations
Law Enforcement
Tribal, State or Local Agencies
Other Organizations Reducing Substance Abuse

17. Youth: Positive Peer Groups
Potential Benefits
Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Insight into youth’s perspectives
Youth involved in planning
Youth ownership in initiatives
Youth as volunteers
Youth as leaders
Direct influence of youth
Transportation to meetings
Tokenism
Keeping engaged

18. Parents Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Big stakeholders in the well-being of youth
Important feedback on successes or failures of initiatives
Volunteers
Transportation
Keeping them interested
Busy schedules/work hours conflict with meetings

19. Local Business Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Financial support
Fiscal management expertise
Strategic plan development
Managerial expertise
Opportunity to interact with MBE/WBE
Decisions based on finances outweigh decisions for the good of the community
“Business mindset trumps coalition heart”
MBEs are often small, and owners only have time to run business

20. Media Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/pitfalls
Getting message out
Multiple avenues of dissemination
Expertise on message delivery
Exposure increases recruitment
PSAs
Provision of expertise in:
Media Advocacy
Social Marketing
Issue Framing
Sensationalism overshadows prevention message

21. Schools Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/pitfalls
Access to school youth
School data for assessment
Valuable staff insight
Ease of school engagement
Community planning from school perspective
Bridge between families and coalitions
Isolation
Preoccupied with trying to achieve State standards
No volunteers to commit to coalition duties
Protection of school reputation
Little to no sharing of data or info

22. Youth-Serving Organizations
Potential Benefits
Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Access to youth
Expertise in youth development and programming
Youth recruitment for coalition
Organizations may be too busy with youth programming to be productive in coalition matters
Too much dependence on organization’s youth
Competing interests cause conflict

23. Law Enforcement Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Key resource in fulfillment of strategy
Enforcement of policies and laws
Police image improved throughout community
History of mistrust / bad relations
Officers live outside community
No positive relationships with residents
Focus more on punishment than prevention

24. Faith-Based Organizations
Potential Benefits
Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Visionary leadership
Inspirational leadership resulting in momentum
Ready volunteer base
Involvement contingent upon agreement with religious standards
Outspoken spiritual views may offend some coalition members.
Diverting attention from common cause to personal belief debates

25. Civic Groups Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
High visibility in community
Community service initiatives
Volunteer base
Strategies for raising awareness in community
Donations towards coalition cause
Reach out to local businesses/gov’t. for policy shaping around ATOD
Potential conflicting message during social events (i.e., serving of alcohol)

26. Health Professionals Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Access to community- specific information
Voice of authority on health matters
Respect gained from community
Lack of consistency due to time constraints
Rotating staff to meetings as representatives

27. Tribal, State or Local Governmental Agencies
Potential Benefits
Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Expertise on local government
Policy-making for coalition’s favor
Key stakeholder in the city
Amped-up voice for under- represented minority populations
Media coverage
Leadership
Political one-sidedness
Political suicide
Getting tied to politician’s views & political agenda
Loss of coalition’s voice by adhering to politician’s views
Dominance of government
Loss of vision for political gain
Falling for politics as usual

28. Other Organizations Potential Benefits Potential Barriers/Pitfalls
Extremely close to heart of community
Previous community action
Involvement in other community coalitions
Spread too thin between coalition and other community involvement

29. Barriers & Pitfalls Activity
Split into groups.
Look at the sectors around the room.
Determine which sectors are missing & which are present in your coalition.
Instruct each group to gather at a different sector.

30. Barriers & Pitfalls Activity (cont’d.)
If a sector is missing, write BARRIERS keeping them from being at the table.
If a sector is present, write current or potential pitfalls that impede progress in the coalition’s goals.
After 1 minute, rotate clockwise to the next sector
After final rotation, return to seats as a group and fill out the following matrix for missing sectors only

31. Activity: Recruiting Sectors
What’s the Buy-in?
Serve: What can we do to benefit them?
Receive: How can they help us?
Which person or position do we need from that sector?
What role do we want them to take in the coalition?
Activity:
Youth
Parents
Businesses
Media
Schools
Youth Servicing Orgs
Law Enforcement
Religions/FBO
Fraternal
Civic/Volunteer
Healthcare Field
Government
Other Organizations
Champions

32. Breaking Through Barriers
Activity
Look at your starting sector and the listed barriers.
Discuss/write ways to overcome barriers discussed using action plan.
At your tables, pick a sector and discuss barriers and pitfalls that are specific to that sector within your own community. Discuss ways to overcome barriers and avoid pitfalls.

33. Beyond Barriers Action Planning
Identified or Potential Barrier:
(From Group Discussion)
Action Step:
Desired Outcome
Required Resources
Responsible Party
Time Duration 1. 2. 3. 4.

34. How Can We Recruit These Missing Sectors?
Create a Marketing Plan that:
Is Sector-Specific
Culturally
Politically
Acknowledges Barriers
Is Strategic in Placement
Accurately Displays Goals
Mutually Beneficial

35. 4 P’s Marketing
Product is the goal of the campaign It is the behavior we would like the focus audience to change or maintain.
Price is what the people in the focus audience must give up in order to receive the program’s benefit.
Section 7 - Media

36. 4 P’s Marketing (Cont’d.)
Promotion is the overall strategy (messages) used for persuading people to accept the price for the product.
Place is the communication channel that will be used to get the promotional message to the focus audience.
Section 7 - Media

37. 4 P’s Marketing Activity
Product
What are you producing in the community?
Promotion
How will you promote to this sector?
Place
What media will you use to reach this sector?
Price
What will this sector need to commit to the coalition?

38. Building Blocks of Coalitions
1. Relationship 2. Dedication 3. Trust 4. Shared Knowledge 5. Leadership 6. Assessment
Elements of Successful Coalition-Building Strategies:
During the past two decades, researchers have identified elements that are present in successful coalition-building strategies. Here are a few of their conclusions
(Doherty, 2000; Perkins, Borden, and Knox, 1999; Thompson et al., 2003)

39. Relationships
They are the cornerstone for networking & collaborative agreements
They take time! 
They require repeated conversations and frequent occasions for working / planning together.
They help shared visions and common purposes emerge.
Relationships. Personal relationships among program administrators are the cornerstone for networking and collaborative agreements (Perkins, Borden, and Knox, 1999). Relationships take time. They require repeated conversations and frequent occasions for working and planning together. That is how shared visions and common purposes emerge
Perkins, D. E, Borden, O., & Knox, A. (1999)

40. Dedication Long-term dedication among staff members
It takes time for leaders from the different organizations to count on one another to supply needed services
It takes time for people to recognize that they are not in competition
It often takes a long time for change and transformation to occur in distressed communities.
Doherty (2000) speaks about the importance of long-term dedication among staff members to the collaborative enterprise. It takes time for leaders from the different organizations in the coalition to grow confident that that they can count on their colleagues to supply needed services. Over time, they recognize that that they are not in competition with these colleagues in their efforts to recruit clients; indeed, their new partners may become sources for new referrals. Long-term commitments are also essential because of the extended time it often takes for change and transformation to occur in participants’ lives or in distressed target communities. Coalition members must be in it for the long haul, patiently awaiting the fruits of their labors. That requires special people. A staff person with the Catholic Community Center admitted that she was “overwhelmed” by the intense dedication of network colleagues to helping each participant.
Doherty (2000)

41. Trust Facilitates communication
Creates a willingness and commitment to identify with the collaboration
Nurtured when members together produce written mission, expectations, and terms for exchanging resources. 
Trust facilitates communication and thus creates a willingness and commitment to identify with the collaboration (Perkins, Borden, & Knox, 1999). Trust is nurtured, these authors suggest, when members of the collaborative network together produce a written document specifying their enterprise’s mission, expectations, and terms for exchanging resources. An administrator at Muslim free clinic we studied noted they mostly use memorandums of understanding so that the roles of the clinic and collaborating universities are explained and “those responsibilities are very clear.” This formal communication, while necessary, is still insufficient. This program’s administrator emphasized that trust is cultivated and maintained through constant communication: “Make sure there is constant exchange of information; that it is not just one sided [and that] one organization doesn’t just benefit from the other.”
(Perkins, Borden, & Knox, 1999).

42. Trust (cont’d.)
Cultivated & maintained through constant communication:
a constant exchange of information
not one-sided
Trust facilitates communication and thus creates a willingness and commitment to identify with the collaboration (Perkins, Borden, & Knox, 1999). Trust is nurtured, these authors suggest, when members of the collaborative network together produce a written document specifying their enterprise’s mission, expectations, and terms for exchanging resources. An administrator at Muslim free clinic we studied noted they mostly use memorandums of understanding so that the roles of the clinic and collaborating universities are explained and “those responsibilities are very clear.” This formal communication, while necessary, is still insufficient. This program’s administrator emphasized that trust is cultivated and maintained through constant communication: “Make sure there is constant exchange of information; that it is not just one sided [and that] one organization doesn’t just benefit from the other.”
(Perkins, Borden, & Knox, 1999).

43. Shared Knowledge
Knowledge of the community’s history, its strengths, and its needs is a vital element
(i.e. demographic information, suggestions etc.)
Involves building a deeper, common understanding. 
Buried, unacknowledged memories of past resentments and/or of injustices negatively affect current efforts to work together.
Knowledge of the community’s history, its strengths, and its needs is a vital element within the process of building successful collaborative relationships. This may include simply sharing information. A Pennsylvania faith-based administrator benefited from this type of collaboration, noting that their partner “shared demographic information, they shared suggestions with us, and they contribute a lot of the information we pass out. They let us know whenever there are activities in the community.” Sharing knowledge also may involve building a deeper, common understanding. Buried, unacknowledged memories of past resentments and/or of injustices negatively affect current efforts to work together. Leaders of cooperating organizations cement their relationships when they listen to each other and to community members—i.e., when they take the time to cultivate a shared memory. In this process, the virtues of flexibility and openness build trust among cooperating organizations (Thompson et al. (2003).  
(Thompson et al. 2003)

44. Leadership
Strong leadership is required to move the cooperating organizations toward shared goals and objectives
Successful collaborative leaders focus on intentional and goal-directed relationship- building
Don’t forget about your Champions!
Collaborative efforts require strong leaders who will move the cooperating organizations toward shared goals and objectives, according to Perkins, Borden, and Knox. Successful collaborative leaders focus on relationship-building, but they never lose sight of the fact that these relationships are intentional and goal-directed. The head of the Pennsylvania faith-based organization communicated that one measure of their organizational performance is “ the contacts we make with other organizations…We are seeing our name pop up on people’s brochures that we are one of their collaborating agencies…Those are good indicators. [And] our board is connected throughout the community.”
Perkins, D. E, Borden, O., & Knox, A. (1999)

45. Assessment
Ongoing process of assessment is always present in successful networking.
It’s the vehicle through which networks maintain and reinforce their shared visions and mission.
It provides clarity about how success will be measured is essential to the network’s health. 
Finally, Perkins, Borden, and Knox argue that an ongoing process of assessment is always present in successful networking.   Assessment is the vehicle through which networks maintain and reinforce their shared visions and missions. Clarity about how success will be measured is essential to the network’s health. A Los Angeles collaboration between a faith-based welfare to work program and a local bank, for example, is deliberate about measuring the success of their collaboration. The welfare to work program tracks participants and keeps case notes that indicate the success of the participant working with the bank’s employment program.
Perkins, D. E, Borden, O., & Knox, A. (1999)

46. SWOT Analysis Exercise
Positive (+)
Negative (-)
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Internal
External

47. Coalition Building/Action Planning
Affected Sector:
Youth
Parents
Businesses
Media
Schools
Youth Servicing Orgs
Law Enforcement
Religions/FBO
Civic/Volunteer
Healthcare Field
Government
Other Organizations
Identified Pitfall:
(From Group Discussion)
Building Block to use:
1. Relationship Dedication
3.Trust
4.Shared Knowledge Leadership
6.Assessment
Action Step:
(Including persons responsible and duration
Desired Outcome
Required Resources
Responsible Party
Time Duration
1.Example:
Tokenism
Leadership
Coalition structure redesigned so that Youth are involved in planning process and included in voting process.
Form Youth Committee
Change in Coalition Policy,, Bylaws, structure.
Youth considered an important part of coalition.
Policies,
By-Laws
Time
Executive Board
Youth members
Youth and Coalition Members
4 Weeks
Next Mtg

48. Maintaining a Healthy Coalition Using the 6 Elements
Building Blocks
Steps Needed to Sustain Building Blocks
Desired Outcome
Resources Required
Responsible Party
Time Frame
1.Relationship
2.Dedication
3.Trust
4.Shared Knowledge
5.Leadership
6.Assessment

49. Coalitions do more than bring people together: They bring systems together!
The Paradigm shift of Leadership: understanding that Prevention is Community Leadership
Bringing systems together that normally may have functioned on their own (independently)
SAMHSA has greatly helped coalitions by creating a prevention platform as a tool.

50. References
         Doherty, W. (2000). Family science and family citizenship: Toward a model of community partnership with families. Family Relations, 49 (3),
Perkins, D. E, Borden, O., & Knox, A. (1999). Two critical factors in collaboration on behalf of children, youth, and families. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 91 (2),
Thompson, M. et al. (2003). Facilitators of well- functioning consortia: National health start program lessons. Health & Social Work, 28 (3)