Reframing Coalitions as Systems Interventions: A Network Study Exploring the Contribution of a Youth Violence Prevention Coalition to Broader System Capacity

This longitudinal research conceptualizes community coalitions as events in local intervention systems (Hawe et al. in Am J Commun Psychol 43(3–4):267–276, 2009 ). It explores the potential contribution coalitions make, through the collaborative activities of their members, to the broader intervention systems in which they are embedded. Using social network analysis, it examines patterns of structural change in a network of 99 organizations focused on youth violence prevention (YVP) over a 5‐year period in which 30 of the 99 organizations were involved in a local YVP Coalition. Both longitudinal modeling and cross sectional analyses are used to examine change in system capacity—strong interorganizational networks—related to patterns of network density, centralization, and hierarchy. Somewhat surprisingly, the study found that capacity in the broader YVP Intervention System actually diminished during the 5‐year period of the coalition’s operation, though part of the system—the sub‐network that made up the YVP Coalition—was marginally strengthened. In this case, therefore, the evidence suggests that power and relational resources in the broader YVP Intervention System were redistributed. The article explores how the definition of capacity related to density and hierarchy may be contextually dependent. Implications for the role of coalitions in building system capacity are discussed.     

Conflict Transformation, Stigma, and HIV-Preventive Structural Change

Over the prior decade, structural change efforts have become an important component of community-based HIV prevention initiatives. However, these efforts may not succeed when structural change initiatives encounter political resistance or invoke conflicting values, which may be likely when changes are intended to benefit a stigmatized population. The current study sought to examine the impact of target population stigma on the ability of 13 community coalitions to achieve structural change objectives. Results indicated that coalitions working on behalf of highly stigmatized populations had to abandon objectives more often than did coalitions working for less stigmatized populations because of external opposition to coalition objectives and resultant internal conflict over goals. Those coalitions that were most successful in meeting external challenges used opposition and conflict as transformative occasions by targeting conflicts directly and attempting to neutralize oppositional groups or turn them into strategic allies; less successful coalitions working on behalf of stigmatized groups struggled to determine an appropriate response to opposition. The role of conflict transformation as a success strategy for working on behalf of stigmatized groups is discussed.     

Governance Processes and Change Within Organizational Participants of Multi-sectoral Community Health Care Alliances: The Mediating Role of Vision,Mission, Strategy Agreement and Perceived Alliance Value

Multi-sectoral community health care alliances are organizations that bring together individuals and organizations from different industry sectors to work collaboratively on improving the health and health care in local communities. Long-term success and sustainability of alliances are dependent on their ability to galvanize participants to take action within their ‘home’ organizations and institutionalize the vision, goals, and programs within participating organizations and the broader community. The purpose of this study was to investigate two mechanisms by which alliance leadership and management processes may promote such changes within organizations participating in alliances. The findings of the study suggest that, despite modest levels of change undertaken by participating organizations, more positive perceptions of alliance leadership, decision making, and conflict management were associated with a greater likelihood of participating organizations making changes as a result of their participation in the alliance, in part by promoting greater vision, mission, and strategy agreement and higher levels of perceived value. Leadership processes had a stronger relationship with change within participating organizations than decision-making style and conflict management processes. Open-ended responses by participants indicated that participating organizations most often incorporated new measures or goals into their existing portfolio of strategic plans and activities in response to alliance participation.     

Becoming Paladin: The Bodily Ground of World Becoming

In this article I will suggest that futures are made as embodied enactments of individuals and collectives. Values and identities are shaped as postures, gestures, movements, and expressions that are in themselves sites of personal and communal meaning. Bodily organizations are ground for senses of self, and the recognition, and reaction to, the otherness of others. Bodily organizations are shaped in encounters in families and social and cultural institutions that they in turn shape. Kinds of bodies and kinds of bodily enactments are cultivated in different communities. They can be sources of conflict or sources of transindividual and transcultural becoming. In this article I look at some ways bodily meanings are developed in both families and communities. I use the image of Paladin, a fictional television gunslinger character in the 1950s, among others, to describe processes of embodied self-formation that are derived from the media and other extra-familial sources. I look at the polycultural organization of individual psyches in our era, as well as somatically based community conflict and collaboration. I briefly describe how practiced experiences of somatic organization can be used as tools for personal and communal exploration of new possibility.     

Empowerment praxis in community coalitions

Community coalitions address a wide variety of community problems, espousing a community development processes that promotes individual and collective self-determination. They offer a promising venue for the study of empowerment of individuals and organizations. This study utilizes data from members of 35 community coalitions organized for the prevention of alcohol and other drug problems to address the following questions: What individual characteristics are related to the psychological empowerment of coalition members? What organizational characteristics are related to the collective empowering of members? What organization characteristics are related to a coalition being organizationally empowered to succeed in achieving its objectives? At the individual level, psychological empowerment was most strongly related to individuals' participation levels, sense of community, and perceptions of a positive organizational climate. At the group level, the strongest predictors of collective empowering (our operationalization of the empowering organization) were net benefits of participation, commitment, and positive organization climate. Psychological empowerment and positive organizational climate were the two predictors of organizational effectiveness (the empowered organization). Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

The Future of Community Coalition Building

The future holds great promise for community coalitions as powerful interventions for community change. Community change is envisioned as: working with whole communities; increasing grassroots and civic engagement; promoting diversity, collaboration and, advocacy; increasing roles for professional technical assistance and evaluation; future changes in the role of government; and the building of healthy communities. Examples of these dimensions follow, as contributed by activists from a wide range of fields.     

Using empowerment theory in collaborative partnerships for community health and development

Models of community empowerment help us understand the process of gaining influence over conditions that matter to people who share neighborhoods, workplaces, experiences, or concerns. Such frameworks can help improve collaborative partnerships for community health and development. First, we outline an interactive model of community empowerment that describes reciprocal influences between personal or group factors and environmental factors in an empowerment process. Second, we describe an iterative framework for the process of empowerment in community partnerships that includes collaborative planning, community action, community change, capacity building, and outcomes, and adaptation, renewal, and institutionalization. Third, we outline activities that are used by community leadership and support organizations to facilitate the process of community empowerment. Fourth, we present case stories of collaborative partnerships for prevention of substance abuse among adolescents to illustrate selected enabling activities. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities of facilitating empowerment with collaborative partnerships for community health and development. This work was supported by Kansas Health Foundation Grants 9206032B and 9206032A to support and evaluate community partnerships to prevent adolescent substance abuse. Thanks to Tom Wolff for sharing his wisdom about community coalitions so generously, and to Bill Berkowitz and anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this manuscrpt. We also thank our colleagues from the Kansas Health Foundation, Mary K. Campuzano, Steve Coen, and Marni Vliet, and those from collaborating communities, who continue to teach us about ways to enhance community capacities to address local concerns.     

Implications of evidence-based practice for community health

Evidence-based practice, developed in clinical medicine, is being applied to community health programs. Barriers to implementation of evidence-based practice noted in clinical medicine are likely to exist in community health settings and may be complicated by the nature of community health programs. These barriers include accessibility and availability of relevant data, social and political considerations of program decision-making, and conflicting expectations for evaluation research. This paper discusses barriers to both amassing evidence for practice and using evidence for decision-making in community health. The potential for conflict between practice goals set by evidence-based thinking and those set by community health organizations is also discussed. Implications for evaluations of community health programs are raised and recommendations for improving access to and use of evaluation information are made.     

Accomplishing Structural Change: Identifying Intermediate Indicators of Success

Coalitions are routinely employed across the United States as a method of mobilizing communities to improve local conditions that impact on citizens’ well-being. Success in achieving specific objectives for environmental or structural community change may not quickly translate into improved population outcomes in the community, posing a dilemma for coalitions that pursue changes that focus on altering community conditions. Considerable effort by communities to plan for and pursue structural change objectives, without evidence of logical and appropriate intermediate markers of success could lead to wasted effort. Yet, the current literature provides little guidance on how coalitions might select intermediate indicators of achievement to judge their progress and the utility of their effort. The current paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of various indicators of intermediate success in creating structural changes among a sample of 13 coalitions organized to prevent exposure to HIV among high-risk adolescents in their local communities.     

“Okokuqala ngokuya ndandiqala kwakungekho easy”: Feeling empowered to take collective action through community engagement

Community engagement (CE) at Rhodes University (RU) and community psychology draw on similar principles: using an asset-based community development approach; recognising and drawing on the skills, capabilities, and knowledge of all parties, which they contribute to a partnership. Working from a strategic model of engagement, mutuality is foreground in all CE activities, where both student volunteers and community partners jointly benefit from the engagement. This paper examines CE at RU and how CE principles are translated into practise, using Siyakhana@Makana (S@M) as a case study. In S@M, a 19-week-long volunteer programme, community partners and student volunteers are jointly involved in planning, executing, and evaluating CE activities together. This paper illustrates how being involved in such CE activities has enabled community partners to mobilise for effective change in their communities. Community partners reflect on how they have been empowered to taken on leadership roles, addressing local challenges in collaborative ways, while drawing on the skills and knowledge that they have gained through their engagements in S@M. This resonates with the social action model of community psychology, a participatory approach that seeks to mobilise people to bring about change in the contexts in which they live.     

The dynamics of a disturbance: New and established interests in technology policy debates

The effects of technological change have political implications. A “disturbance,” such as the rise of the Internet as a mass medium, brings about new policy issues and establishes new interest organizations in the lobbying community. The differential mobilization of interests can affect the resolution of these policy issues. I combine face-to-face interviews with Washington representatives from organizations involved in Internet policy debates with compiled data on the extent of their involvement to outline the difficulties that organizations face when building lobbying capacity, developing an agenda, and forming coalitions. The results indicate that new entrants face substantially more constraints than established interests and that these differences may affect policy outcomes. He formerly served as Research Director for the California Commission on Internet Political Practices.     

Studying Multivariate Change Using Multilevel Models and Latent Curve Models

In longitudinal research investigators often measure multiple variables at multiple points in time and are interested in investigating individual differences in patterns of change on those variables. In the vast majority of applications, researchers focus on studying change in one variable at a time. In this article we consider methods for studying relations1.1ips between patterns of change on different variables. We show how the multilevel modeling framework, which is often used to study univariate change, can be extended to the multivariate case to yield estimates of covariances of parameters representing aspects of change on different variables. We illustrate this approach using data from a study of physiological response to marital conflict in older married couples, showing a substantial correlation between rate of linear change on different stress-related hormones during conflict. We also consider how similar issues can be studied using extensions of latent curve models to the multivariate case, and we show how such models are related to multivariate multilevel models.     

Community Coalition Building—Contemporary Practice and Research: Introduction

Over the last 20 years, coalition building has become a prominent intervention employed in communities across America. Coalitions provide community psychologists and those in related fields with a chance to work with whole communities and to better understand how to create community change. As we reflect on the past two decades of community coalition building, there are many questions to be answered about this phenomenon. Why has there been such an upsurge in community coalition building activity? What is the impact of this activity? What have we as students of community learned? What are the questions that we need to be asking to improve the effectiveness of coalition building efforts and their evaluation? This set of articles will review the state of the art of community coalition building in both practice and research. The structure of the articles reflects a collaborative process, with multiple contributors from different disciplines, using a variety of formats. Because this is an evolving phenomenon where the questions asked are as important as the lessons learned, many of the major sections include dialogues with community experts from across the country and from multiple fields, including community psychology, public health, political science, public administration, and grassroots organizing.     

OUR COMMON ENEMY: COMBATTING THE WORLD'S DEADLIEST VIRUSES TO ENSURE EQUITY HEALTH CARE IN DEVELOPING NATIONS

In a previous issue of Zygon (Carvalho 2007), I explored the role of scientists—especially those engaging the science-religion dialogue—within the arena of global equity health, world poverty, and human rights. I contended that experimental biologists, who might have reduced agency because of their professional workload or lack of individual resources, can still unite into collective forces with other scientists as well as human rights organizations, medical doctors, and political and civic leaders to foster progressive change in our world. In this article, I present some recent findings from research on three emerging viruses—HIV, dengue, and rotavirus—to explore the factors that lead to the geographical expansion of these viruses and the increase in frequency of the infectious diseases they cause. I show how these viruses are generating problems for geopolitical stability, human rights, and equity health care for developing nations that are already experiencing a growing poverty crisis. I suggest some avenues of future research for the scientific community for the movement toward resolution of these problems and indicate where the science-religion field can be of additional aid.     

Structural and Community Change Outcomes of the Connect‐to‐Protect Coalitions: Trials and Triumphs Securing Adolescent Access to HIV Prevention,Testing, and Medical Care

Connect to Protect (C2P), a 10‐year community mobilization effort, pursued the dual aims of creating communities competent to address youth's HIV‐related risks and removing structural barriers to youth health. We used Community Coalition Action Theory (CCAT) to examine the perceived contributions and accomplishments of 14 C2P coalitions. We interviewed 318 key informants, including youth and community leaders, to identify the features of coalitions’ context and operation that facilitated and undermined their ability to achieve structural change and build communities’ capability to manage their local adolescent HIV epidemic effectively. We coded the interviews using an a priori coding scheme informed by CCAT and scholarship on AIDS‐competent communities. We found community mobilization efforts like C2P can contribute to addressing the structural factors that promote HIV‐risk among youth and to community development. We describe how coalition leadership, collaborative synergy, capacity building, and local community context influence coalitions’ ability to successfully implement HIV‐related structural change, demonstrating empirical support for many of CCAT's propositions. We discuss implications for how community mobilization efforts might succeed in laying the foundation for an AIDS‐competent community.     

The promise of the internet for disability: a study of on-line services and web site accessibility at Centers for Independent Living

The Internet provides individuals with disabilities numerous tools to live independently. In the convenience of the home, a person can access an abundance of information, an electronic community, updates on the latest disability advocacy news, education through distance-learning classes, and on-line shopping for books, clothes, assistive technology, and a host of other consumer goods. Centers for Independent Living (CILs) are consumer-run, non-profit grassroots disability service organizations at the forefront of the disability rights movement. Providing services to individuals across the range of disabilities, CILs have begun to use the Internet as a complement to their traditional service delivery methods. This article examines the emerging trend of independent living services on the web. The investigation examines 200 CIL Internet sites across the United States during the period of April to August 2001. Information is collected and analyzed about how CILs are using the Internet to provide their services and programs. In addition, the article examines the technological accessibility of their web sites. Implications of the findings for CILs, consumers with disabilities, and disability policy are examined.     

Faith Organizations and Ethnically Diverse Elders: A Community Action Model

SUMMARY

In this article we argue that faith organizations should become involved in developing social service programs for older adults in the community. In the current political climate, the government is providing fewer social service programs, and future prospects for services are bleak. The literature provides evidence that religion and faith-based organizations are important in the lives of Americans, particularly the current cohort of ethnically diverse elders. Our earlier Korean church study found that Korean older people benefit from church-based services and church-involved, older Koreans had higher rates of well-being. Churches remain untapped resources and we believe they should be extensively involved in provision of community programs. We offer a twelve-step model for the development of community programs under the auspices of faith organizations: The Faith-Based Community Action Model (FBCAM).     

Community Counselling in African Contexts

This article explores community counselling as a form of professional practice for psychologists, with a particular focus on practices that are relevant in African contexts. The discussion identifies and discusses various models of practice identified in community psychology, including an ecological perspective, a public health and community mental health framework, interventions that focus on promoting a sense of community, indigenous approaches to community counselling and a critical or social action framework. Examples relating to each of these models of practice are drawn from various African settings, providing practitioners with some insights into how theory can be operationalised into practices that are relevant to African contexts. The article concludes with a discussion on community research, with a particular focus on ethical considerations relevant to a community approach in African contexts. The latter discussion emphasises the importance of working with the community as partners, and suggests the possibility of developing a Code of Ethics aimed specifically at guiding community counselling practice in African contexts.     

Organizing Race

Faith‐based community organizing is receiving an increasing amount of attention from scholars of religious ethics. This essay is motivated by the worry that accounts of such organizing depend on a problematic embrace of multiculturalism, an embrace characteristic of our neoliberal era. Like the powers that they purport to challenge, organizing efforts often embrace difference (racial, gender, and religious) only when it is carefully managed. This is being challenged by theological accounts of organizing that take the religious dimension of such efforts seriously, as well as by feminist critiques of community organizing. This essay probes how race might be taken just as seriously by religious ethicists who study community organizing. Drawing on the civil rights movement's legacy of faith‐based community mobilization as well as traditions of Black theological reflection, this essay challenges the easy embrace of multi‐racial coalitions in faith‐based organizing.