Once you have partners on board, you can create a vision and a mission together. These will clarify how you hope to support the social and emotional development of young children in your community, and how you will structure your partnership to reach your goals. The “Where Does Our Work Intersect?” tool may be useful here too, helping partners learn about each other’s programming. With the “Connect the Dots” activity you’ll learn how to connect the motivations, values, and ideas of all your partners to create one vision.

 

There can be tensions between parents and providers, and between partners from more professional settings and those from family or faith-based settings. Often there are significant differences in the populations served by those providers. The pediatricians and mental health clinicians in your partnership may lean towards formal assessment tools for children’s development, while the child care providers may rely more on experience or practice-based knowledge. Engaging parents as partners in these efforts can be challenging as well. As your partnership works to develop goals and a plan to support children’s social-emotional development, take care to include all of the members’ perspectives. A shared leadership model can help to support the participation of all. The “How Do We Create an Agreement for Working Together?” tool can help you preserve the understandings you come to on each challenging question.