Community partners contribute to fostering and sustaining service-learning partnerships. In the service-learning pedagogy, their leadership roles, although identified as partners and co-collaborator, have been under-investigated in the context of their perceptions and contributions. To contribute to the understanding of partners' collaborative involvement, and leadership strategies, we interviewed four partners from two non-profit agencies that had collaborated on projects with a small liberal arts university for more than six years. The partners described their motivations for committing to the partnership, discussed the perceived benefits of the collaboration, and explained the strategies they implemented to address partnership challenges. We demonstrate that in service-learning collaborations, active community partners exhibit leadership competencies of knowing, being and doing, and they display the five components of leadership success outlined in the Relational Leadership Model: supporting purpose, sustaining process, ensuring ethics, maintaining inclusiveness, and creating empowerment.
In this article, I explore the function of social support among women with breast or gynecologic cancers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who received services from a community health organization located in northern California. Findings suggest that the path to wellness for women with cancer is one that involves negotiable interactions with family, friends, and the medical community, such as decision-making regarding treatment and lifestyle choices. Distinctions were made between the support received from other women with cancer, and that received from family and friends. In addition to having emotional and instrumental functions, social support involves the exchange of information, resulting in a greater sense of control over the cancer experience. Health care providers and others who interact with women with cancer will benefit by recognizing the importance of social support throughout the healing process.
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