Interagency Collaboration: Agencies and Businesses

Collaboration guides and training

- The Transition Coalition offers a free online training module, Interagency Collaboration: the Groundwork. It gives examples and strategies to help you build or strengthen your team. It includes videos and interactive activities and will probably take a bit over an hour to complete. You do have to create a free account on the Transition Coalition site in order to access the course.
- Partnering for Student Success: A Practical Guide to Building Effective School-Based Partnerships (PDF, 104 pages, 2016). This toolkit resulted from a study of partnership coordination efforts in Philadelphia, PA. Breaks the process into six elements and provides roles and responsibilities, sample conversation topics, and questions and resources for each element. Facilitator’s Guide (PDF, 128 pages, 2017)
- A Transition Guide to Postsecondary Education and Employment for Students and Youth with Disabilities (PDF, 62 pages, 2020) is a comprehensive overview of how state, local school districts and Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) work together with students and families to plan for the future. It links elements of good transition planning back to the related legislation. From the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services U.S. Department of Education (OSERS).
- A collection of TED Talks on the topic of collaboration.

School and business or agency partnership examples

- School Business Partnerships in Anchorage, Alaska connect more than 600 school and business partners in collaborations that benefit their schools and community.
- Check out the New Hampshire Transition Community of Practice which meets monthly on Zoom.
- Success stories of school-business partnerships in schools across the country, from Education World.
- Sample of an transition-focused agreement between several state level agencies in Wisconsin (PDF, 15 pages, 2010). Useful to see they divide and describe responsibilities. It’s old but still useful to show the structure of an agreement.

- The Seven Norms of Collaboration Toolkit, (PDF, 26 pages, 2019) from the Thinking Collaborative, is a valuable tool for developing and sustaining productive group interaction. One page flyer of the seven norms. U.S. Department of State training manual page on the seven norms.
- Blog about presuming positive intentions from Maryclare Heffernan.
- A troubleshooting guide of common problems faced by those doing community work with reflection questions to help clarify the issues, and easily access related resources, from the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas.
- How to focus on a community’s strengths rather than its deficits: “Building from Strength: Asset-Based Community Development,” an article from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Updated 7-1-26