Community-Campus partnership case-study

Posted by on November 14, 2003

[posted on Service-Learning listserv]

Authored by Community-Campups Partnerships for Health (CCPH) Fellow Anne Reiniger, “Best Beginnings: A Child Abuse Prevention Program in New York City,” used the CCPH Principles of Partnership to reflect on a successful 10-year old partnership’s work and to identify the ingredients of a toolkit for other communities in developing community-campus partnerships.

The case study is based on work in Washington Heights, an underserved community in the northern Manhattan section of New York City. It describes the formation of Best Beginnings, a voluntary home-based program for high risk families, launched in 1994 as a partnership among: The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Columbia University, and Alianza Dominicana, a community based agency. The program has been replicated in 26 sites around the state and is part of Healthy Families America, a program of Prevent Child Abuse America with over 430 sites around the country.

The case study is intended to educate medical, social service and community-based providers on strategies used to create, develop and sustain a community-campus partnership model. Effective services for children and families in high need communities require three critical factors: defining a specific need, creating partnerships with different constituencies to address that need and communicating a persuasive message to implement the service.

Anne Reiniger is an attorney and social worker and was Executive Director of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children for 15 years. During her tenure there she developed Best Beginnings, the program on which the case study is based. She was a leader in the creation of the New York State Home Visiting Council and co-chair of its Advocacy Committee. Anne has served on the faculties of Columbia University School of Social Work and Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service.

She is Secretary of the Board of Directors of Prevent Child Abuse America and on the Advisory Board for the Community Pediatrics Program at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.

Read more about Anne and download the case study at: http://futurehealth.ucsf.edu/ccph/2002fellows-reiniger.html

To learn more about the CCPH principles and how they have been applied, visit: http://futurehealth.ucsf.edu/ccph/principles.html#principles

For more resources on community-campus partnerships, visit: http://futurehealth.ucsf.edu/ccph/partnerships.html