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Recent descriptive studies of family literacy programs highlight the importance of cross-agency collaboration. Collaboration among education and human service agencies in local communities has, in fact, emerged as a critical element of family literacy--in part because of the realization that the process of addressing the literacy needs of parents and children is complex and requires the delivery of multi-faceted services to meet those needs. In addition, family literacy intervention staff increasingly have identified the provision of integrated services as a necessary program component, and have used the collaborative process to build relationships among agencies delivering services.
The trend toward a reduction in education and social services funding also has prompted programs to work together in exchanging services and materials as a strategy for supporting comprehensive interventions. Family literacy programs have thus been creative in identifying the various resources in a community that may be used to develop an integrated approach, including education as well as family support services. Furthermore, cross-agency collaboration has been encouraged by the federal programs that authorize the expenditure of funds for family literacy, such as Even Start and Head Start. Finally, inherent in the delivery of any successful multi-component program is the coordination of agency staff representing the different service components.
While policymakers and practitioners consider cross-agency collaboration to be an essential ingredient of an effective family literacy program, there is little evidence concerning the relationship of collaborative activities to the functioning of these programs and the attainment of client outcomes. As an initial step in defining the research issues that should be addressed concerning the role and the impact of cross-agency collaboration and integrated services in family literacy programs, this paper presents a preliminary framework for examining the factors necessary to sustain collaborations in family literacy. The framework is drawn from the classical research on interorganizational relationships and from studies of interagency coordination in adult education and human services. Also discussed in the paper are the areas of inquiry that appear to be important for any understanding of the collaborative process and its outcomes for family literacy.
Family and intergenerational literacy programs are being implemented in communities with varying durations and intensity of services. The four-component model developed as part of Kentucky's Parent and Child Education (PACE) program, and currently disseminated by the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) (1995), is a comprehensive approach to breaking the cycle of poverty and undereducation in the family system that calls for the integration of adult education, early childhood education, parent and child interaction time, and parenting education and support. In the NCFL model, the four components are expected to work together in a flexible framework that meets the needs of parents and children.
Other intergenerational and family education models are being used that do not require the four components, but still are encouraging parents' and children's literacy development, directly or indirectly. One such model provides services to parents and their children with less intensity and duration than the NCFL model and with less focus on formal instruction. Other variations include the provision of literacy services to children indirectly, basically by enhancing parents' abilities to select books and to read to their children--or to serve children directly in supplemental reading programs wherein the role of the parent is to support children's literacy efforts, rather than to participate in adult literacy education (Nickse, 1991).
Since few systematic studies of family literacy have addressed cross-agency collaboration (e.g., Quezada & Nickse, 1993; St. Pierre et al., 1993), most information about collaboration in family literacy must be drawn from handbooks and program reports (e.g., the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, 1989; National Center for Family Literacy, 1991; Association for Community Based Education, 1993). While the majority of those documents do not describe the collaborative processes that are used by programs and the effects of those processes, they do provide information about the types of organizations involved in collaboration and the challenges faced in carrying out collaboration, and thus are an important data source for understanding the major players involved in collaboration.
Cross-agency collaboration has evolved at both the local and the state level. At the local level, education and human service agencies may work together to fund and to implement a family literacy program that reflects one of the service delivery models previously described. Even Start and Head Start programs are working with local adult education service providers, for instance, in organizing family literacy programs that provide coordinated adult and early childhood education services. Within a program, staff from different service components collaborate in carrying out services that represent different levels of integration.
Cross-agency collaboration and the provision of integrated services are reported in all types of local programs, but are more likely to occur in the comprehensive approaches to family literacy. Integrated services can be considered to be one outcome of cross-agency collaboration, wherein two or more entities work together toward a common goal. In family literacy programs, integration can be defined in terms of the co-location of the delivery of services, the substantive integration of the adult and early childhood education curricula, the collaboration among staff from the different substantive components that comprise a program, the coordination of support services that are provided to parents through the program, and the coordination of funding sources to support a program. For example, in family literacy programs using the four-component model, it is optimal to have co-located adult education and early childhood education services to facilitate the parent-child interaction time.
Such services as the above may be directed by the same agency, as was found in about half of the Even Start programs examined in the national evaluation, or they may be provided in cooperation with other agencies or through contractual relationships with other agencies (St. Pierre et al., 1993).
Another form of integration involves the curricula used for both parents and children. In programs where curricula integration is a goal, instructors from the adult and early childhood education components meet to plan curriculum and to schedule activities that reinforce desired concepts in both instructional programs. The Family Literacy Demonstration Project, a collaborative effort between the Center for Literacy and the Philadelphia Public Schools, is an example of instructional content for adults mirroring the K-12 curriculum for children. As children were learning classification using shapes and colors, adults worked on the classification of different types of literature (National Institute for Literacy, 1993).
The importance of providing integrated support services to families in order to assist them in dealing with barriers to participation is a common theme in descriptions of family literacy efforts. While noting the critical role of these services in more general family support programs, researchers have acknowledged the difficulty of evaluating the impact of such services on family functioning (e.g., Kagan & Shelley, 1987; Weiss, 1988). In family literacy programs, the emerging pattern is one wherein programs either provide support services directly to clients or work in conjunction with existing networks, such as child care, employment training, and other family support services (Brizius & Foster, 1993). The 10 projects cited in the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy handbook (1989) illustrate the range of support services that are being offered as part of family literacy programs, including the commonly provided services of transportation and meals as well as lending libraries and stipends for purchasing reading materials, pre-employment training, and medical and dental exams.
The coordination of funding sources is one of the more difficult aspects of operating family literacy programs. Often the adult education program and the Even Start or Head Start agencies in a given community have no prior working relationship, and their ability to offer joint programming is problematic. In an effort to promote coordinated funding, the NCFL has structured its demonstration programs to require matched funding, which encourages the family literacy program to seek support from community agencies that, indeed, can contribute to the program's services.
The issue of coordinated funding for education and human services has been discussed extensively at the federal level, and recent research indicates that local coordination of funding is facilitated when the state offices administering those funds provide technical assistance and encouragement to local agencies (Alamprese, Brigham & Sivilli, 1992). As block grants become more important, the issue of the types of services that are authorized under federal or state programs will be more critical. Resources such as those provided by the NCFL in describing the possible funding sources for family literacy have assisted local programs in organizing their solicitation strategy. As the types of funding and procedures for accessing money change, further assistance will be needed to provide local programs with access to multiple funding sources.
In carrying out a variety of integrated services, family literacy programs have had to develop collaborative relationships with other agencies and organizations in a community that may include the immediate exchange of goods or a longer-term commitment to working together in coordinating services and funding. While the conventional wisdom of family literacy providers is that collaboration is an essential element of any program, it is widely recognized that effective collaborations are difficult to implement and sustain. The analysis of early data from the Even Start evaluation noted that while 123 projects were involved in 2,128 cooperative arrangements to provide core program services, there were a number of barriers to implementation including problems of communication and coordination and difficulties in structuring support services (St. Pierre et al., 1993). These barriers are echoed in other studies of family literacy and intergenerational programs (e.g., Association for Community Based Education, 1993; Quezada & Nickse, 1993).
Collaboration at the state level occurs between state agencies as well as between state agencies and local programs. States are moving forward in sponsoring special projects or initiatives to encourage the development of family literacy programs, and have begun to coordinate cross-agency funding to facilitate such development. As the first state to implement a comprehensive approach to family literacy, Washington instituted a program similar to Even Start in the mid-1980s. In addition, Kentucky has been a leader in supporting the implementation of the four-component model of family literacy, and state officials were active in extending the center-based model programs in North Carolina (Brizius & Foster, 1993).
State support for family literacy has included the passage of legislation on family literacy (e.g., Hawaii, Louisiana, and Arizona), as well as the inclusion of family literacy provisions as part of broader school reform initiatives. In some states, such as Illinois, interagency groups are working together to sponsor family literacy programs. In a current project sponsored by the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the National Center for Family Literacy is working with California, Illinois, New York, and North Carolina to build state infrastructures for family literacy that include a training system for family literacy and interagency state activities to foster the development of local family literacy programs.
Private sector organizations and foundations also are helping to support family literacy through programs such as matching grants. In fact, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust was an early leader in funding model family literacy programs in Kentucky and North Carolina. The Toyota Motor Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation continue to support family literacy programs that require matching funds from local communities as well as the participation of local agencies in partnerships for delivering services.
As the funding for education and human services moves entirely toward block grants, the lessons from state initiatives on effective cross-agency collaboration become more critical. However, few of these efforts have been evaluated, pointing to the need for more rigorous studies.
An initial step in understanding the conditions that give rise to cross-agency collaboration, as well as the process of developing and sustaining interrelationships in family literacy, is to use a heuristic device, such as a framework, for defining the variables of interest and specifying the types of relationships that might be examined. The classical literature on organizational relationships and social exchange theory provides a point of departure for developing such a framework.
Agencies generally form interrelationships because they are compelled to do so, or because they have a common objective or a mutual need and consider it in their own best interest to work together (Cook, 1977). In the case of family literacy, some legislative mandates or state policy initiatives have called for collaboration by requiring that agencies join together in developing multi-component services. Private sector initiatives in family literacy also have required multi-agency participation in funding and in program development.
In contrast to situations mandating or initiating cross-agency collaboration, agencies may voluntarily work together to fund programs or to enter into other arrangements for exchanging services or information. Under such circumstances, the conditions for collaboration are specified by the participating agencies as a tool for meeting a common need. The activities of local family literacy programs in organizing support services for clients and in carrying out multi-component services are illustrations of this type of collaboration.
Recent research on interagency coordination in adult education (Alamprese, 1994; Alamprese, Brigham & Sivilli, 1992; Alamprese, Schaff, & Brigham, 1987), family literacy and support programs (MacDonald, 1994; Quezada & Nickse, 1993; Kagan, 1991), and job training (Bailis, 1989; Grubb et al., 1989) provides some insight into understanding the factors that are important for developing and sustaining effective collaborations. While these studies have identified similar strategies used by programs to carry out collaborations, the work on adult education coordination also addresses the structural conditions that give rise to organizational interrelationships.
When organizations attempt to work together at both the local and state levels, it appears that two types of collaboration strategies are important--strategies organizations use to develop relationships, and the communication mechanisms that are used to sustain these relationships. As noted in the literature, an initial step that organizations take in developing a collaborative relationship is to determine the benefits and costs of exchanging resources, information, or services. Three factors concerning the perceived benefits and costs of a relationship are important in organizational as well as individual development of relationships. These are: (1) the extent to which the parties involved view the relationship as reciprocal (Gouldner, 1959); (2) the extent to which the benefits of engaging in a relationship are perceived to be at least equal to or more than the costs (Blau, 1964); and (3) the extent to which the benefits are perceived to be proportional to the investment that is made in establishing a relationship (Homans, 1961). In the case of family literacy programs, the agencies involved in designing the services must first determine what they can offer other agencies and what they expect in return. This process where agencies identify the costs and benefits is a critical step in forming a collaborative relationship and should be undertaken by agencies individually before they attempt to work together. When agencies meet, they then must decide whether the payoff from working together in providing services such as adult and early childhood education outweighs the effort that is needed to develop and maintain such services.
Once organizations decide that it is beneficial to all to work together, they must determine the boundaries of their relationship. Organizations use both formal and informal agreements to set boundaries, which often delineate the types and amount of resources that are to be exchanged. Formal agreements usually are needed when fiscal resources or staff are transferred between agencies or programs, while informal agreements are used for other exchanges, such as information, where staff rely on personal knowledge and trust. The available data on family literacy programs indicate that informal arrangements are more likely to be used by the agencies working together in these programs. Almost half of the projects in the Even Start evaluation used informal arrangements, while less than a quarter of the agencies entered into formal agreements (St. Pierre et al., 1993). This pattern of beginning with informal agreements in establishing collaborative relationships was found in a study of interagency coordination of state and local adult education programs, wherein state agencies, in particular, used informal agreements to test the collaborative process before formulating agreements for interagency transfer of funds or other resources (Alamprese, Brigham, & Sivilli, 1992).
Perhaps needless to say, the communication that takes place both between and within organizations has been recognized as an important element in developing and sustaining collaborations. In short, agency staff must develop a common set of goals or a joint vision about what is to be accomplished. Local family literacy planning groups or state and local interagency task forces and advisory councils are mechanisms that programs use to create a mission and to monitor its progress. In the Even Start programs, about a third of the agencies in each of the three service components (adult education, early childhood education, and parenting education) reported the use of an advisory group (St. Pierre et al., 1993). Program staff also use their formal and informal networks in building interorganizational relationships. The annual conferences sponsored by the National Center for Family Literacy have been occasions for network building for program staff at both regional and local levels.
A final aspect of collaboration that is important is leadership, which can come from staff in state agencies or in local programs. At the state level, the sponsors of a family literacy initiative have critical roles in guiding interagency activities, fostering connections with local programs, and providing technical assistance. In addition to providing coordinated funding through the Request for Proposal process that combines funding streams to support family literacy programs, state agencies also can encourage local programs to use set-aside funds to support family literacy activities. Local program collaboratives also need individuals who monitor the progress of a multi-component program and assure that the relationships among the members are balanced. These individuals have critical roles in using mechanisms such as regularly scheduled meetings between agency representatives to discuss aspects of the collaborative that are working and aspects that may need alteration.
The components of the framework discussed above provide a starting point for identifying the key research issues that should be addressed concerning cross-agency coordination. Given the lack of research on cross-agency coordination in family literacy, there are a number of areas that would benefit from study. Since most previous research in collaboration has not addressed the structural conditions that lead to successful interagency relationships, it is important to understand the conditions, such as legislative or policy mandates or voluntary actions, which result in effective family literacy programs. The processes that agency staff use to join together in funding or providing services also are not well documented. The family literacy field would benefit from research that examines the processes for assessing the benefits of a relationship; the procedures used in setting relationship boundaries and establishing formal and informal agreements; the mechanisms for communication such as advisory councils and networks; and the strategies that are useful for providing state and local leadership to a collaborative.
The area of inquiry with perhaps the smallest knowledge base is that dealing with direct and indirect outcomes from collaboration. While not an end in itself, cross-agency collaboration can be thought of as an intervening variable that plays an important function in effecting outcomes from family literacy programs. A prior step to studying outcomes is, therefore, to develop a better understanding of the processes used to generate and to sustain cross-agency collaboration. Once the nature of collaboration is documented, it would be useful to examine whether collaboration leads to improved family literacy services or enhanced support for families at the community or state level.
With the solidification of federal funding, the need for effective cross-agency collaboration becomes more important. Since the structure of family literacy services is a collaborative process, and little is known about the effects of that process, any research agenda on family literacy should include studies of collaboration and its disparate consequences.
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