Free To Grow - Partners


	>	Collaboration
	>	Establishing a Continuum of Care
	>	Policing
	>	Schools
	>	Child Protective Services
	>	Treatment Partnerships

Free To Grow
Mailman School
of Public Health
Columbia University
722 West 168th Street,
8th Floor
New York, NY 10032

Welcome to our Partners page. Here you will find resources and strategies that researchers and practitioners across the nation have identified as being effective at strengthening and engaging diverse community partners to support the healthy development of young children. In the Partners page, you can find information on assessing and improving your collaborative relationships, discover innovative strategies for improving relationships between residents and law enforcement officials, learn about developing dedicated treatment relationships, and explore ways to reduce the duplication of services to high-need families in your community.

Linkages with community-based organizations has long been a hallmark of Head Start programs. While helping to reinforce these linkages, Free To Grow has added another dimension to community collaboration. Based on the conviction that community-level factors decisively influence individuals� vulnerability to substance abuse and other high risk behaviors, Free To Grow creates new types of community partnerships that have the potential to make neighborhoods more protective environments for children and families. These partnerships, with groups like community development agencies, Alcohol Beverage Control agencies, and code enforcement officials, open up new terrain to early childhood programs like Head Start, and challenge them to think differently about how to solve some of the seemingly intractable problems of substance abuse, child abuse and domestic violence in their families and communities.

The partnership strategies described in these pages are intended to support Free To Grow�s family and community strengthening efforts. For this reason, this page should be read along with our Family and Community pages.

Click on any one of the strategy or resource pages to learn more.

Collaboration

Establishing a Continuum of Care

Policing

Schools

Child Protective Services

Treatment Partnerships

Disclaimer

Free To Grow is a national program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University.