Consultant Corner: Why Facilitation is Important in Complex Partnerships

The news continues to be grim:  Many nonprofits will not survive the current economic crisis. Others will have to scale down their offerings to the community or will have to partner with other organizations to meet the growing needs.  Even before this recent wave of economic downturn, the pervasive culture in the nonprofit sector is one of competition for limited resources which adversely impacts collaboration and partnership development.  The reality is one organization alone cannot effectively meet the needs of a community.  However, partnerships can be incredibly difficult to manage and sometimes are not very efficient.  Hence, the need for an outside facilitator.  

The most common issue encountered in complex partnerships--or any partnership for that matter--is communication.  How do you get individuals to share information and be transparent about individual goals and objectives in the context of the broader partnership?  It begins with building relationships and trust.  A skilled, objective facilitator can navigate this process by providing a space conducive to disclosure and relationship building.  The key is to have a facilitator that doesn't have a horse-in-the-race.  An objective voice that can focus on the issues and not the people involved can help move stagnation based on personality conflicts to shared understanding and collaboration.  Not to say that it is easy.  Often times there is historical conflict that permeates deep into the institutions that individuals represent.  In extreme cases, it is important to acknowledge the wounds of the past, but quickly get to a plan for restorative justice.

Second, facilitation can help to document the process of partnership development by defining goals, timelines and key outcomes that are agreed upon by the team.  Invariably, organizations and/or individuals enter partnerships with their own goals in mind.  Some people refer to this as an agenda.  It is incredibly important to invest in the planning of mutual goals and objectives and defining what group success looks like.  Clarity in the plan, specifically around how many people need to be served; hours of operation; identifying space for activities; clear roles and responsibilities and how resources will be distributed will help in the overall management of the partnership.  Also, the documentation of the partnership will allow decision makers to reflect on past thinking when issues arise (document, document, document!)  When partnership amnesia occurs, the documentation provides a history of how decisions and agreements came to be.  

Finally, an independent facilitator allows partner organizations to share leadership and decision making in a fluid way.  Typically, a lead agency assumes leadership in partnership/coalition building which automatically sets the tone for uneven distribution of decision making.  The lead agency is viewed as the authority and not a partner in this type of design.  With an outside facilitator, all agencies are active participants in goal setting and decision making processes which engenders greater trust and builds relationships on equal ground. 

Facilitation is not an exact science.  Make sure you take the time to get referrals for quality facilitation services.  Unfortunately, bad facilitation can set you back even further, so make sure to make informed decisions when choosing a facilitator.  

    

  

 

  

Latino Parent Involvement

One of the greatest indicators of student success is the involvement of parents in their child's education.  There is a broad range of parent involvement from very passive strategies, like showing encouragement to more engaged strategies, like assisting with homework and being actively involved in the PTA.  Moreover, there is evidence that parent mobilizing--based off of traditional community organizing models--have been effective in changing school, district and even statewide educational policies. 

Recent focus groups that my colleague and I conducted with Latino high school and college students suggest that Latino parents tend to be involved with their child's education in a more passive way.   Most of the responses we received from students indicate that parents are passively involved by showing encouragement to their students--meaning that parents give positive reinforcement when their children are performing well and give tough love to their children as a way of corrective action when they are not performing well.  When asked if (Latino) parents were providing help with homework or involved in a more engaged way the most typical response was "no."  So, what is the reason behind a general lack of engaged parent involvement?  The language barrier.

Most of the students we interviewed had monolingual, Spanish speaking parents that had difficulty interpreting homework assignments and correspondence sent home by the school. However, the most significant barrier to engaged parent involvement cited by students was the absence of Spanish speaking teachers and administrators at their schools.  One student suggested:  "My mom really would like to be involved at my school, but she has a hard time communicating with the teachers there.  They don't understand what she is saying, so she just stopped going (to the school)."  

Obviously, there are many other barriers to engaged parent involvement, such as stricter district-level school security measures; overwhelmed parents working 2-3 jobs to support their families; a failure of some Latino parents to learn English; and parental apathy.  However, the issue underscores the need to have more bilingual educators and administrators, specifically in schools with traditionally large populations of Latino students.  In line with President-elect Obama's plan at merit-based teacher pay, we need to look at providing incentives for bilingual educators and administrators to work in high-density Latino schools.  Even further, we need to promote bilingualism for incoming teachers entering our post-secondary institutions.  The Latino population in America is growing at an astounding rate.  This coupled with a global economy, places greater need for bilingual and multilingual workers.

So, hopefully we do not lose sight of the need for more bilingual educators as we seek to reform our public education system.  

    

No Child Left Behind????

As the auto industry rides into D.C. seeking yet another tax payer line of credit, the temperament of the American public for corporate bailout grows increasingly thin.  An article in today's NY Times describing the deplorable health conditions and relative lack of concern from our government to provide meaningful support to Hurricane Katrina victims 3 years after the fact only exacerbates public discontent.  What about these forgotten youth who are trying to find even the slightest bit of normalcy in their lives?  Has our collective short-term memory allowed us to forget that if we are going to bail anyone out shouldn't we be focusing on the innocent victims of this recent natural disaster?  

If we don't respond to the critical health care needs and provide a basic safety-net for victims of Katrina, like the article suggests, "what you're looking at is our future juvenile justice--our prison population.  According to a study by Columbia University, 42 percent of the children who lived in trailers laced with dangerous levels of formaldehyde had allergic rhinitis or an upper respiratory infection.  Additionally, more than half of children ages 6-11 had a learning problem, yet had to wait as long as 2 years to be tested for learning disabilities.  

 No Child Left Behind!!??

Musical Chairs

With Gov. Richardson officially being named as the Commerce Secretary designate, we can cue the music and begin the musical chairs.  Soon-to-be Governor Diane Denish will take the first vacant chair, holding in hand a bill for $500 mil left by the soon-to-be former Governor of New Mexico.  After a brief pause in the music, the shuffling will continue for the next available chair:  Lt. Governor. The names being circulated in ubiquitous fashion are State Auditor Hector Balderas and Mid Region Council of Governments official Lawrence Rael.  Once the music resumes, there will be a host of other participants vying for seats in the new administration from Chief of Staff down to the vacant seats left behind by those seeking to move up the ranks in State Government.  

Like any dance, this one also has a sequence of steps.  First, exactly when will Gov. Richardson vacate his post?  Will he resign early much like President-Elect Obama did with his Senate seat?  Can soon-to-be Governor Diane Denish begin to build her team now or will it have to wait until the dawn of the legislative session, which begins on January 20th--otherwise reserved in the public consciousness as the official start of the Obama era.  

Cue the music........this dance could last awhile!