Community Partner Resources
Websites
Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC)
Central Indiana Bicycling Association
The Emergent Leadership Institute & Help Indy Online
Indiana Association of United Ways
Indiana Youth Institute
Indianapolis Bicycle Coalition
Marion County Commission on Youth
Project Linus*
United Way of Central Indiana
Youth as Resources
Youth Philanthropy Initiative of Indiana
Books & Periodicals
Building Partnerships for Service-Learning, Barbara Jacoby and Associates, 2003
Building Community Through Service-Learning: The Role of the Community Partner (528K pdf). Explains the role of the community partner in school-based service-learning and includes a how-to guide. An issue paper from Education Commission of the States.
Planning for Youth Success: Resources and Training Manual includes information on measuring youth success and mapping community assets. The complementary guide, Partnerships by Design: Cultivating Effective and Meaningful School-Family-Community Partnerships, provides practical forms, worksheets, and activities to help you write your own school-family-community partnership plan. Offered by the School-Family-Community Partnerships Team at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Download PDF version from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
Building Effective Partnerships for Service-Learning is a concise resource that offers tips and resources for creating community partnerships. From the Points of Light Foundation. 4 pages.
Community Partnerships: Meeting Community Needs is a one-page tip sheet for developing service-learning projects that address real community needs. Provided by the Pennsylvania Service-Learning Alliance.
Partner Power and Service-Learning: Manual for Community-Based Organizations to Work with Schools and Service-Learning for Community Based Organizations, a resource to help community-based organizations support service-learning, is provided by Serve Minnesota. 25 pages. (PDF)
Promoting and Sustaining Civic Partnerships: A Conceptual History, Framework, and a Call to Action, by Lawrence Neil Bailis and Alan Melchior of Brandeis University, traces the evolving role of partnerships between schools, higher-education institutions, government, and the private sector. From the Constitutional Rights Foundation's Service-Learning NETWORK, Spring 2004 issue on the topic of civic-education and service-learning partnerships.
Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools provides information on service-learning and 15 "community schools." The report includes a bibliography, resource list, and community schools network contact information. Offered by the Coalition for Community Schools.
Andress, S. (1993). Working together for youth: A practical guide for individuals and groups. Minneapolis, MN: Lutheran Brotherhood. Pages 54-55 and 58-60 explain the different levels of collaboration and the six factors that contribute to effective partnerships.
Bruner, C. (1991). Thinking collaboratively: Ten questions and answers to help policy makers improve children's services. Washington, DC: Education and Human Services Consortium. Provides some questions to ask in the planning stages of partnerships and addresses some of the limitations of collaborative partnerships.
Center for Mental Health in Schools. (1997). An introductory packet on working together: From school-based collaborative teams to school-community-higher education connections. Los Angeles, CA: Author. Retrieved from This is a packet of materials on forming effective partnerships, including information on working together effectively and examples of model school-community collaborations.
Henderson, A. T., & Lewis, A. C. (1998). Building bridges: Across schools and communities, across streams of funding. Chicago,IL: Cross-City Campaign for Urban School Reform.
This report summarizes a 1997 conference that brought community activists, school reformers, and community funders together to talk about how to organize for reform using local resources and strategies, and combining school and community efforts.
Leifer, L., & McLarney, M. (1997). Younger voices, stronger choices: Promise project's guide to forming youth/adult partnerships. Kansas City, KS: Promise Project, YMCA. Since it is important to partner with young people, this book shows how to create true partnerships between adults and youth for real community change.
National Assembly of National Voluntary Health and Social Welfare Organizations. (1997). The new community collaboration manual. Washington, DC: Author. Provides philosophical background of the seven keys to successful collaboration (shared vision, skilled-leadership, process orientation, cultural diversity, member driven agenda, multiple sectors, and accountability).
National Education Association. (1996). A pocket guide to building partnerships for service-learning. Washington, DC: Author. This guide offers insight into starting partnerships between schools and agencies for strong service-learning programs.
Partnership for Family Involvement in Education. (1998). Seven tips to building an effective partnership. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Tips for building partnerships with schools, parents, community organizations, businesses, and faith groups. This article was created to help strengthen communities and improve educational standards.
Pennsylvania Service-Learning Resource and Evaluation Network. (n.d.). Service-learning educator. Describes practices that promote collaboration and demonstrates the value of collaboration between schools and community.
Thomas Jefferson Forum, Inc. (1991). The coordinator's handbook of the Thomas Jefferson forum: A comprehensive guide for developing high school-based community service programs. Boston, MA: Author. This manual has an excellent section on forming partnership and gaining support from the community and schools.
Models of Service-Learning Partnerships
This bibliography highlights a few Learn and Serve America Programs as well as provides resources for organization, school, and university practitioners who are interested in fostering service-learning partnerships.
Source: National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, July 2007.
Learn and Serve America Grantee Program Examples
Youth to College Initiative (Y2C)
This program is designed to increase college readiness among youth from disadvantaged situations. There is a considerable gap in educational attainment levels among racial and ethnic groups. To address these issues, the Y2C Initiative will involve a minimum of 900 faculty and 15,000 college students and youth in service-learning projects and trainings over three years. Contact Information: Elaine Ikeda, San Francisco State University, Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA94132.
Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute
Central New Mexico Community College (CNMCC) will provide four subgrants to New Mexico colleges to support 800 participants in service-learning projects. The Learn and Serve projects will focus on developing mentoring opportunities between college and high school students, reducing juvenile delinquency rates of disadvantaged youth, improving reading and math literacy, and improving opportunities for citizens in rural areas to enroll in college.
Contact Information: Rudy M. Garcia, Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, 525 Buena Vista Southeast, Albuquerque, NM 87106.
Southern Oregon University
Through this Learn and Serve America grant, Southern Oregon University (SOU) students will serve as tutors and mentors to the Hispanic Academic Outreach program. They will assist 300 high-risk Hispanic students to achieve outcomes of increased rates of retention, high school graduation, enrollment in college-track coursework, and participation in higher education. Contact Information: Barbara Scott, Southern Oregon University, 1250 Siskiyou Boulevard, Ashland, OR 97520.
Conrad, Jill and Jennifer Vadeboncoueur. Colorado Learn and Serve K-16 Service Learning Partnership Evaluation, 1996-97. Denver, CO : Colorado Department of Education, 1997.
This program report evaluates six K-16 service-learning partnerships that had the goal of instituting meaningful collaborative efforts between K-12 schools and higher education institutions.
ECS (Education Commission of the States). Promising Practice for K-16 Project Connect: School University Collaboration for Service-Learning.Denver, CO : Education Commission of the States, 2000.
This paper describes the authors' experiences as a professor and teacher involved in Project Connect, an online collaborative service-learning project between pre-service teachers at Western Washington University and 8th grade students at Fairhaven Middle School in Bellingham ( Washington ) Public School District.. This paper describes the project's rationale, outlines how the project actually worked and reports outcomes for each set of students. It also provides recommendations for helping others create similar collaborations.
Mihalynuk, Tanis Vye & Sarena D. Seifer. Partnerships for Higher Education Service-Learning. Scotts Valley, CA: National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, 2002.
This document focuses on service-learning partnerships between faculty and community agency staff, and between academic institution and community agency. It is written for administrators, faculty and staff from colleges and universities who seek to strengthen their service-learning partnerships.
National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. Building Effective Partnerships for Service-Learning. Scotts Valley, CA: National Service-Learning Clearinghouse.
Effective partnerships between agencies, schools, colleges or universities, businesses, government, and residents for the benefit of the community are a vital part of youth service in America. This fact sheet gives an overview of the benefits and process of developing partnerships.
National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. School/Community Partnerships: Selected Resources. Scotts Valley, CA: National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, 2006.
This bibliography lists online and print resources on partnerships between schools and communities.
Nitschke-Shaw, Debra and Terry Pickeral. K-H Partnerships Tool Kit. Concord, NH : Campus Compact, New Hampshire, 2000.
The focus of this publication is development and support of K-12 school partnerships with higher education institutions. The Tool Kit includes: elements of effective K-H partnerships, resources for developing these partnerships and activities to sustain them. This publication is valuable for both existing and developing K-H partnerships.
Pickeral, Terry. " Partnerships with Elementary and Secondary Education." In Building Partnerships for Service-Learning. Indianapolis, IN : Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2003.
This book chapter proposes that higher education institutions must extend and enhance their partnerships with elementary and secondary schools to advance service-learning on both levels. The chapter examines higher education/K-12 partnerships, with an emphasis on how service-learning enhances partnerships. Policy implications, examples, challenges, strategies, and recommendations for moving partnerships to greater depth, scope, quality, and reciprocity are also covered. The chapter concludes with a view of the future based on the concept of partnerships beginning at the preschool level and extending beyond the baccalaureate.
Sandy, Marie. Community Voices: A California Campus Compact Study on Partnerships, Final Report. San Francisco : California Campus Compact, 2007.
This study grew out of a conversation among service-learning practitioners at a retreat hosted by California Campus Compact. "What do our community partners think about service-learning? We think they are benefiting, but how do we know? Why do they choose to partner with us in the first place?" While reciprocity of benefits for the community has long been an intended hallmark of service-learning practice, service-learning practitioners often do not know if, when and how this is achieved
Sandy, Marie and Barbara A. Holland. Different Worlds and Common Ground: Community Partner Perspectives on Campus-Community Partnerships. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, v.13(1), Fall 2006, 30-43.
This qualitative study includes focus group research involving 99 experienced community partners across eight California communities using community-based research techniques to capture community voices about their service-learning partnerships with different colleges and universities.
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