People Matter When Supporting Change – Change Matters When Supporting People: Strengthening Collective Impact in Disadvantaged Communities

An important part of the CREATE Change Cycle that underpins the CREATE-ing Pathways Project is the ongoing development of people who guide Community Coalitions (CCs) in their use of electronic measures, resources and methodologies embedded within the Prevention Translation and Support System (PTSS). We call these people Collective Impact Facilitators (CIFs). We are not solely relying on the provision of resources to support change, but rather recognise the importance of CIFs to support CCs as they use the electronic resources to move toward data-driven, evidence-based practices.

Each CIF works alongside members of a CC to respond to and enhance their functioning. This includes supporting a shift in how CCs think about and do practice. CIFs work as both critical friends and technical advisers to their CC. They work closely with the CC while also remaining independent, reflecting and interpreting the operation of the CC in an unbiased way. In this role the CIF and the CC work together to understand what is happening and formulate strategies to resolve issues (be it their own functioning or the direction and practices they are engaged in). Thus, the CIF role is about capacity building within the CC.

During Phase 1 (2014-2016) CIFs worked with the research team and CC leaders in 5 Action communities (5 CCs acted as Business As Usual (BAU) sites). The Coalition Wellbeing Survey (CWBS) was a key tool used by the CIFs to help CCs identify and improve areas of functioning requiring attention. All communities received a detailed report on their coalition functioning profile, but only the Action sites were actively supported by a CIF. The research question was whether the provision of the report to BAU CCs would be sufficient to enable improvements in functioning or whether the support of a CIF ‘value added.’ To answer this question we analysed two waves of CWBS data (Wave 1 n=150, 70% response rate; Wave 3 n=143, 70% response rate). Results indicate that Phase 1 CIFs were successful in effecting greater improvements in Action CCs. While BAU CCs made improvements they were of a smaller magnitude.

In Phase 2 (2017-2018) supervision of the CIFs shifted away from the researchers to partner organisations as they took over their employment. Researchers became guides for CIFs. This shift in supervision has yielded some important insights related to the need for change within organisations in order for the CIF role to function as originally conceptualised. The CIF role as a critical friend has contracted somewhat, due possibly to pressure to conform to business as usual, as well as time constraints. This paper will summarise what we have learned when supporting CIFs as they work within the status-quo of organisational functioning in the community.