Go to TWC Front Page The Community Collaborative Wellness Tool

The core instrument of the Together We Can Initiative is the Community Collaborative Wellness Tool: Improving Results for Children, Youth, Families and Neighborhoods. The goal of the Tool is to strengthen the capacity of collaborative systems reform initiatives to change how public, private, and community institutions work together to support children, youth, and families. The Tool reflects the experiences of many community collaboratives in working toward comprehensive reforms. It raises issues collaboratives must address in accomplishing their ultimate goals of improved results for children, youth, families, and neighborhoods.

The Tool integrates seven substantive elements of reform with five stages of collaborative change outlined in Together We Can.

The seven elements of reform shown on the Tool are:

  1. collaborative decision-making (governance)

  2. public engagement

  3. parent, consumer, and neighborhood participation

  4. accountability for results

  5. comprehensive supports and opportunities

  6. financing and resource development

  7. leadership/professional development and capacity building

The stages of collaboration shown on the continuum are:

  1. Getting Together

  2. Building Trust and Ownership

  3. Strategic Planning

  4. Taking Action

  5. Deepening and Broadening the Work

A sixth stage, Going to Scale, is not included on the continuum, but represents the idealized end-state for fully-implemented collaborative reforms. Three key themes cut across the Wellness Tool: family and neighborhood driven, respect for diversity and a commitment to equity and a systemic focus.

The Tool uses questions to convey the idea that collaborative reform is a process of continuing inquiry in which participants ask, answer, and reflect on questions for themselves, for their organizations, and for their communities. When teams from community collaboratives work together to answer the questions, the continuum becomes an assessment tool to chart progress, identify challenges and create a more strategic course of action.