NEW: Two day workshop
on coalition building and collaborative solutions

The perfect offering for statewide and national organizations

In addition to the long standing half day and day long workshops, Tom Wolff & Associates now offers a new two day workshop on coalition building and collaborative solutions. A perfect offering for your statewide or national organization. Contact us today: tom@tomwolff.com.

The goals of the workshop are to increase the skills and understanding by the participants of the collaborative process with an emphasis on concrete skills and tools. There is a lively mix of didactic material, and exercises, and a full scale coalition simulation. The workshop has been successfully adapted and delivered to experienced coalition leaders to help expand and strengthen their skills. It has also been offered for newcomers, and mixed skill audiences.    Topics covered include: Principles of Collaborative Solutions, Strategic Planning, Creating a Common Coalition Vision, Engaging the Community, Collaborative Leadership, Sustainability, and Evaluation. Participants leave with new energy for the work and new skills and tools.

Sample agenda as developed for an audience in Lisbon, Portugal;

Two day Training 
Institute on Community Coalitions:
Building Healthy Communities through Collaborative Solutions
Faculty: Tom Wolff Ph.D.   www.tomwolff.com , tom@tomwolff.com

Two-day Training
Institute on Community Coalitions:
Building Healthy Communities through Collaborative Solutions
Faculty: Tom Wolff, Ph.D. www.tomwolff.com , tom@tomwolff.com

Day One

Morning

Welcome
Goals, Agenda, Ice breaker

Coalition building and collaborative solutions

What is coalition-building?
Why are we doing coalition-building?
Limitations of our helping systems
Stand and Declare—What do we believe about collaboration? Exercise
Experiences in collaborations—Positive and negative: Exercise

Principles of collaboration solutions: Overview

  1. Encourage true collaboration as the form of exchange.
    Continuum of Collaboration—Which do you use? Exercise
  2. Engage a broad spectrum of the community, especially those most directly affected.
  3. Practice democracy, and promote active citizenship and empowerment.
  4. Employ a healthy communities approach that emphasizes the individual in her/his setting, and builds on community strengths and assets.
  5. Take action by addressing issues of social change and power based on a common vision.
  6. Align the goals with the process.

What do we know from the research about what works? Roussus and Fawcett
        Factors affecting a collaboration’s capacity to create change:                         Worksheet

Healthy Communities as a model

Coalition-Building Problem-Solving Clinic
           
Afternoon

Creating vision and strategic planning

Visioning exercise
Coalition start up—sharing
Coalition stages of development
Barriers
Diversity
Structure

Engaging the community in your collaboration: Exercises

Who to involve? Who do you have involved now?
Who do you need to involve to reach your goals?
Ladder of Participation
How will you recruit them?
Stakeholder analysis
What is their self-interest?
Develop a plan
How will you retain them?

Coalition-Building Problem-Solving Clinic: Case studies

Day Two

Morning

Coalition simulation
        One-hour simulation with 30 minutes to process

Sustainability

Stand and Declare—What do we believe about sustainability? Exercise
Myths
Creating a legacy statement
Sustainability Outcomes
Four approaches
            Institutionalization
            Policy change
            Community norms
            Resources

Next steps
        Action planning
        Evaluate the day plus/delta

Coalition-Building Problem-Solving Clinic: Case studies

Afternoon

Collaborative leadership
        Stand and Declare—What do we believe about leadership?
                 Exercise Skills

Evaluation: Assessing our progress & celebrating our success

Why does documentation and evaluation matter in collaborative solutions?
Experiences with coalition evaluation: As a member? As an evaluator? What worked? What were the challenges?
Assess your progress: Assessment and evaluation of process and outcomes
A framework for evaluation of coalitions
Coalition Member Assessment: Tool
Tools and Resources

Designing and running a coalition retreat

Putting it all togetherintegrating the two daysaction planning for next steps