Adler, L. & Gardner, S. (1994). The Politics of Linking Schools and Social Services. Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

This edited volume includes chapters on a wide array of factors affecting the implementation of school-linked services, including legal, financial, interpersonal, interagency, and organizational issues.

Borden, L. M. & Perkins, D. F. (1999). Assessing Your Collaboration: A Self-Evaluation Tool. Journal of Extension, 37 (2). Available online at http://www.joe.org/joe/1999april/tt1.html.

This self-evaluation tool, developed to assist existing and forming groups, allows groups to rate their collaboration on key factors, including goals, communication, sustainability, evaluation, political climate, resources, catalysts, policies/laws/regulations, history, connectedness, leadership, community development, and understanding community.

Donaldson Jr., G. A. & Sanderson, D. R. (1996). Working Together in Schools: A Guide for Educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

This book offers guidance to teachers, principals, counselors, other school staff members, parents, and community members in building strong, productive working relationships. It describes seven different opportunities for collaboration in schools, as well as a four-phase developmental process for each type of collaboration. Concrete suggestions for effective collaboration are spread throughout the book, including sample ground rules for committees and ways to surface hidden agendas.

Epstein, J. L., Coates, L., Salinas, K. C., Sanders, M. G., & Simon, B. S. (1997). School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

This handbook enables state, district, and school leaders to organize and implement positive and permanent programs of school, family, and community partnerships. It is designed to guide the work of teams consisting of principals, teachers, parents, and others. The information, forms, and activities will also help state and district leaders support, facilitate, and reward the work of their schools. The handbook's eight chapters offer step-by-step strategies to improve school-family-community connections.

Friend, M. & Cook, L. (1996). Interactions: Collaboration Skills for Professionals (second edition). National Professional Resources, Inc.

This text describes how school professionals can develop the knowledge and skills they need for effective professional collaboration.

Harvard Family Research Project. Evaluating Family/School Partnerships: Learning from Logic Models. Available online at http://hugse1.harvard.edu/
~hfrp/family-school/html/logic.pdf.

This brief offers a step-by-step approach for developing and using a logic model as a framework for a program or organization's evaluation. Its purpose is to provide a tool to guide evaluation processes and to facilitate practitioner and evaluator partnerships. Written primarily for program practitioners, this brief uses the example of a hypothetical family/school partnership program throughout the text to help the reader understand each of the steps described.

Hooper-Briar, K. & Lawson, H. A. (Eds.) (1996). Expanding Partnerships for Vulnerable Children, Youth, and Families. Alexandria, VA: Council on Social Work Education.

This book includes papers originally presented at a conference of the same name held in September 1994. Topics include setting agendas for change, bringing clients into the collaborative process, creating school-based human service systems, developing community-responsive universities, overcoming obstacles to interprofessional education and practice, working with the media, and setting policy changes in motion.

Kretzmann, J. P. & McKnight, J. L. (1993). Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications.

This is practical guide to rebuilding troubled communities through a strategy called "asset-based community development." After briefly describing how many communities have come to be so devastated and why traditional strategies for improvement have often failed, this guide proceeds to outline strategies for developing community policies and activities based on the capacities, skills, and assets of lower-income people and their neighborhoods.

Melaville, A. & Blank, M. (1991). What It Takes: Structuring Interagency Partnerships to Connect Children and Families with Comprehensive Services. Washington, DC: Education and Human Services Consortium. ERIC Accession Number: ED330748.

This document describes factors that affect the success of collaborative efforts as determined through an analysis of 13 interagency initiatives that include the cooperation of a school with at least one human services agency. Guidelines for successful partnerships are offered, along with an inventory of questions to help agencies assess the need for partnerships, program descriptions, and a list of resource organizations.

National Parent Teacher Association (2000). Building Successful Partnerships: A Guide to Developing Parent and Family Involvement Programs. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service. Available online at http://www.pta.org/programs/bsp/book.htm.

This book describes the benefits of parent involvement, the components of effective parent involvement programs, and how to implement the National Standards for Parent/Family Involvement Programs (which include communicating, parenting, student learning, volunteering, school decision-making and advocacy, and collaborating with the community). The book offers field-tested strategies for overcoming barriers, reaching out to key participants, and developing an effective parent involvement program.

Partnership for Family Involvement, U.S. Department of Education. A Compact for Learning: An Action Handbook for Family-School-Community Partnerships. Available online at http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Compact/.

This guidebook and its activity sheets engage partners in a continuous improvement process to build and strengthen partnerships for learning. The guidebook can help teams of school staff, teachers, parents, and others develop and use a compact that outlines the shared responsibilities of school partners for children's learning.

Sensiper, S. Generating Family-School Partnerships Through Social Marketing. Harvard Family Research Project. Available online at http://hugse1.harvard.edu/
~hfrp/family-school/html/sensiper.htm.

This article describes social marketing principles and shows how they apply to family-school partnerships. The paper proposes that a formal introduction to the principles of social marketing can benefit those involved in such efforts. The seven principles outlined by Alan Andreason (Marketing Social Change, 1995) are used as a framework.

Shartrand, A. M., Weiss, H. B., Kreider, H. M., & Lopez, M. E. (1997). New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement. Harvard Family Research Project. Available online at http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NewSkills/.

This report begins with a discussion of the importance of family involvement in children's schooling and the need to prepare teachers to promote this involvement. It then examines the status of teacher preparation, providing analyses of state certification requirements and teacher education programs. A framework for teacher preparation in family involvement highlights content areas and promising training methods. This section is followed by a set of recommendations to advance teacher preparation in family involvement.

Shaw, K. & Replogle, E. (1995). Challenges in Evaluating Comprehensive School-Linked Service Efforts. The Evaluation Exchange: Emerging Strategies in Evaluating Child and Family Services. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project, Harvard University. Available online at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/
~hfrp/eval/issue1/repogle.html.

This working paper, presented at the 1995 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, discusses the evaluation challenges facing complex school-linked services and describes and assesses how 17 such initiatives have been evaluated.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2000). Prevention Works Through Community Partnerships: Findings from SAMHSA/CSAP's National Evaluation. DHHS Publication No. (SMA)00-3373. Available online at http://www.health.org/govstudy/ms666/findings.htm.

This report describes findings from the 48-Community Study, which tracked and evaluated the outcomes of prevention strategies used by 251 community partnerships to decrease substance abuse by improving conditions in the community environment. The study reinforces the need for communities to work together and form partnerships to reduce drug and alcohol abuse -- a strategy proven to be more effective than traditional, fragmented approaches. These materials are designed to assist practitioners, researchers, and policymakers.

Taylor-Powell, E., Rossing, B., & Geran, J. (1998). Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin-System Board of Regents and University of Wisconsin-Extension, Cooperative Extension.

Drawing primarily on literature in health and human services, this manual provides a compendium of ideas and research to facilitate the self-evaluation efforts of coalitions and other types of collaborations.

U.S. Department of Education (1997). Keeping Schools Open as Community Learning Centers: Extending Learning in a Safe, Drug-Free Environment Before and After School. Available online at http://www.ed.gov/pubs/LearnCenters.

This guidebook outlines the steps needed to successfully convert a school into a community learning center and lists resources for further information and assistance. Included are concrete suggestions for how to develop a community learning center budget, build consensus and partnership, conduct a community assessment of needs and resources, design an effective program, and evaluate a program's accomplishments.

U.S. Department of Education and Regional Educational Laboratory Network. Putting the Pieces Together: Comprehensive School-Linked Strategies for Children and Families. Available online at http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/
envrnmnt/css/ppt/putting.htm.

This guidebook is primarily addressed to school leaders who want to expand their efforts to help children and families succeed. It illustrates how principals, teachers, and other members of a school staff can reach out to families and the community to build a system of strong support for the healthy development and learning of their children.