Building a neighborhood network: interorganizational collaboration to prevent child abuse and neglect

Policymakers have identified the community-based human services network as a promising model for restructuring services in neighborhoods affected by poverty, but researchers have found this approach complex and difficult to implement. An increase in networks and partnerships among service providers suggests that organizations are learning to work together, yet little is known about the processes of their collaboration. This article reports findings from an organizational analysis of one interorganizational collaboration in which executive directors and frontline practitioners from seven agencies worked for five years to create, implement, and institutionalize a community-based service network of informal and formal family support programs to help prevent child abuse and neglect. This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding community-based networks and interorganizational collaboration and describes and analyzes how collaboration was used as a method to build a new service network, the characteristics of the network, and factors that facilitated the collaborative processes.