For decades, numerous observers have agreed on the value of collaboration between K-12 and higher education--especially as these sectors work toward increasing college readiness and success. While most states maintain separate agencies for K-12 and higher education, many states have worked to foster collaboration through state P-20 councils.…

Evidence-based supported employment has become a core community mental health service in much of the U.S. Although a national learning community has facilitated progress in about half of the states, other states have tried to implement evidence-based supported employment on their own. Many studies have examined site-level factors influencing…

Improving collaboration among organizations is a goal of interagency educational teams, but collaboration is typically thought of as an ambiguous concept that cannot be quantified. To assess the collaborative strength of a state-level interagency team in a Midwestern state, team members completed the Levels of Collaboration Scale (Frey et al.,…

Utilizing "assemblage," a notion associated with Actor-Network Theory (ANT), we explore what discourses of transparency can, and cannot, accomplish in a network of education reform that includes schools, government agencies, and community organizations. Drawing on data collected between July 2011 and March 2013 in an…

The ability to think in terms of a system is critical to achieving common direction, alignment, and commitment in highly distributed health systems. In Canada, provincial and territorial ministries of health provide leadership on the direction of health reform while leadership to align system levels is determined by a far more distributed group of…

Interagency collaboration facilitates strong linkages to adult agencies, which improves adult outcomes among youth with disabilities (Kohler & Field, 2003; Repetto, Webb, Garvan & Washington, 2002). State-level transition teams increase collaboration, reduce duplication of resources, improve professional development, and heighten the…

CHILDREN AT RISK, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization, undertook a year-long effort to study the subsidized child care system in Texas. This included an in-depth analysis of the system's local and state partners, as well as the promotion of the study's findings and key recommendations. This report is one of the products of this…

In Indiana, families with newly identified deaf and hard of hearing children may have varying experiences in discovering the support systems available to them. Indiana has a Part C early intervention (EI) program, known as First Steps, that serves all children at risk or identified with a disability. This program, however, is not yet seamless in…

Extension faculty and agents/educators are increasingly collaborating with local and state agencies to provide and evaluate multiple, distinct programs, yet there is limited information about measuring outcomes and combining results across similar program types. This article explicates the methods and outcomes of a state-level evaluation of…

The Toxics Geography Exercise was developed as an application-oriented exercise to develop skills in critical analysis in groups of undergraduate students from widely diverse academic backgrounds. Students use publicly available data on industrial activities, history of toxic material disposal, basic chemistry, regulatory approaches of federal and…

In this issue of "Odyssey," Joanne Corwin describes New Mexico's statewide partnership among several agencies for the provision of early intervention services to infants and children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families (Effective Partnering of State Agencies to Achieve Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Benchmarks,…

Background: Health insurance coverage increases access to health care. There has been an erosion of employer-based health insurance and a concomitant rise in children covered by public health insurance programs, yet more than 8 million children are still without health insurance coverage. Methods: This study was a national survey to assess the…

Most everyone involved professionally in the non-profit arts comes in contact with a state arts agency. A person may be on the Teaching Artist roster, works for a grantee organization, or has directly received a grant or fellowship. The work that one does in the school is probably funded by the state arts agency. Or, at a more basic level, the…

Surveyed 71 mental health centers to explore types of actions used to cope with environmental changes in relation to perceived importance of external forces. Result showed insignificant increases in directors' contacts with state authorities, community groups, or local service agencies. Relations with state officials were described as improving.…

Ohio's For the Common Good project illustrates the key role of learning in the development of interagency collaborative teams. The learning appeared to be constructivist in nature, with connections to communities of practice and learning communities. (Contains 17 references.) (SK)