Catoosa County Family Collaborative Description

History and Organization: The existing Catoosa Family Collaborative grew from three previous partnerships. Both the Pre-K Program and the Crossroads Academy Alternative School had community committees. Realizing that most of the same people were involved in both collaborative endeavors, these two merged into one. At the same time, a social services agency collaborative had been meeting separately. After several years of co-existing, these groups joined forces, applied for, and received the first Family Connection grant in 1997. That enabled them to hire a full-time coordinator and begin expanding.

Meetings: In 1997, only 12 people attended the August monthly Family Collaborative meeting. In August of 2010, the number of attendees had reached over 90. There is an email list of over 340 partners with 80+ separate entities represented. Each meeting includes a speaker with a brief presentation of resources available to members. We encourage each strategy team to meet monthly to network and review how their strategies are progressing.  In addition to Strategy Teams, other committees evolved to form around programs: a Community Partnership for Protecting Children (CPPC) Strategy Board, a Catoosa Alcohol Prevention Initiative, a Ferst Foundation for Childhood Literacy Action Team, Prevent Child Abuse Catoosa Council, and special committees for community-wide events. That method has been successful in accomplishing a wide variety of programs and activities.

Governance:  Because of the high level of trust, positive interaction, and sense of partnership, the Collaborative decisions are made by the appropriate partners in consultation with the Steering Committee.  The By-Laws for the Collaborative are reviewed annually.  The Steering Committee is comprised of heads of agencies and community leaders including the directors of public agencies, (DFCS, Public Health, DJJ, School Superintendent, County Sheriff), mental health, county government, business, the faith community, evaluation partner, and family consumers.  The Steering Committee members guide the Collaborative and oversee the work of the Coordinator.  Catoosa County government serves as the fiscal agent.  A representative from their financial office serves on the Steering Committee and gives monthly updates on all budget matters.

Recognitions: At several of the Family Connection Conferences, the Collaborative has received awards for the Fiscal Agent, Achieving Membership Diversity, and Outstanding Youth Development. In 2005, the Catoosa Family Collaborative received the Partnership 2000 award for Social Service Agency of the Year. In our community, this is a significant recognition by business leaders.  In the fall of 2005, Ringgold Telephone Company recognized the Collaborative as a group “Making a Difference” in the community through their monthly statement’s informative flyer.

Collaborative Development:  The community has embraced the actual process of systems change. Working together has quite simply become the standard. For example, DJJ and the schools have begun implementing Family Team Meetings—a strategy adopted from the CPPC model. The Catoosa County Board of Education has had a Student Advisory Board for two very successful years which meets monthly and makes recommendations to the Board.  A recent school system committee to meet Federal policy guidelines for nutrition and wellness included the YMCA, students, school personnel, the Collaborative Coordinator, and parents. The Chamber of Commerce program, Leadership Catoosa, now incorporates all community entities, including the Collaborative, social services, and family oriented non-profits rather than just businesses as it acquaints future leaders with the county.  Parenting classes are offered to clients of all agencies that wish to make referrals. The program is grant funded so mandated clients and anyone else can attend at no cost. Very typically, when an issue comes before the Collaborative, the most common response is, “Who needs to be at the table to resolve this?”

Vision & Mission:  During the planning process, the Collaborative membership reviewed both the vision statement and the mission statement. After discussion, the group agreed that both would remain as previously adopted.