ABSTRACT
Implementing a new program in an organization is often a difficult matter. Changing the ‘way we do things around here’ is even more unsettling. Perhaps one of the most challenging changes of all, however, is implementing collaborative social service provision, because it requires changes in the way a variety of organizations do things and involves simultaneous and complementary reform across systems. Human service providers are currently facing this challenge when trying to offer integrated, comprehensive services to families. Fortunately, enough examples of school-social service relationships or other collaborative efforts exist to reveal some common elements of this implementation process. In order to help collaborators meet this challenge successfully, we will describe in the following pages eight practical stages through which most collaborative initiatives pass and highlight these with descriptions of actual efforts.
