This article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of 80 articles, chapters, and practitoners' guides focused on collaboration and coalition functioning. The purpose of this review was to develop an integrative framework that captures the core competencies and processes needed within collaborative bodies to facilitate their success. The resulting framework for building collaborative capacity is presented. Four critical levels of collaborative capacity--member capacity, relational capacity, organizational capacity, and programmatic capacity--are described and strategies for building each type are provided. The implications of this model for practitioners and scholars are discussed.

Systems change has emerged as a dominant frame through which local, state, and national funders and practitioners across a wide array of fields approach their work. In most of these efforts, change agents and scholars strive to shift human services and community systems to create better and more just outcomes and improve the status quo. Despite this, there is a dearth of frameworks that scholars, practitioners, and funders can draw upon to aid them in understanding, designing, and assessing this process from a systemic perspective. This paper provides one framework--grounded in systems thinking and change literatures--for understanding and identifying the fundamental system parts and interdependencies that can help to explain system functioning and leverage systems change. The proposed framework highlights the importance of attending to both the deep and apparent structures within a system as well as the interactions and interdependencies among these system parts. This includes attending to the dominant normative, resource, regulative, and operational characteristics that dictate the behavior and lived experiences of system members. The value of engaging critical stakeholders in problem definition, boundary construction, and systems analysis are also discussed. The implications of this framework for systems change researchers and practitioners are discussed.

The effects of task importance and group decision training on the discussion behavior of decisionmaking groups were investigated. Three-person groups decided which of 3 hypothetical faculty candidates would be the best person to teach an introductory psychology course. Prior to discussion, some of the information about each candidate was given to all group members (shared information), whereas the remainder was randomly divided among them (unshared information). In general, groups discussed much more of their shared information than their unshared information. Increasing the importance of the task slowed the rate at which information was brought forth during discussion. By contrast, group decision training increased the amount of both shared and unshared information discussed and altered the sequential flow of shared and unshared information into the discussion: Discussion in untrained groups focused first on shared information and then on unshared information; discussion in trained groups did not shift focus over time. Results are discussed in terms of an information-sampling model of group discussion and the role of discussion in group decision-making effectiveness.Decisions about important social, organizational, and political issues are frequently made by groups rather than individuals. Using groups to make decisions is often justified on the grounds that groups can bring more intellectual resources to bear on a problem, which in turn should increase the probability that a high-quality decision will result (e.g., Vroom & Jago, 1988). One such resource is the diverse store of knowledge held by group members. Because of differences in background and experience, group members frequently have different information about the choice alternatives under consideration. To exploit this knowledge, decision-making groups usually attempt to pool the unique information their members hold. This is typically done through face-to-face discussion, though other alternatives exist (e.g.,

In recent years, the field of community psychology has given considerable attention to how research and evaluation methods should be designed to support our goals of empowerment and social justice. Yet, as a field, we have given much less attention to whether the use of our methods actually achieves or supports our empowerment agenda. With the primary purpose of beginning to establish the norm of reporting on the impacts of our methods, this paper reports on the findings from interviews of 16 youth and adults who had participated in one participatory evaluation method (Photovoice). Two specific questions were examined: (1) What is the impact of participating in a Photovoice effort; and (2) How does the method of Photovoice foster these impacts? Overall, participants noted that they were significantly affected by their experiences as photographers and through their dialogue with neighbors during Photovoice group sessions. Impacts ranged from an increased sense of control over their own lives to the emergence of the kinds of awareness, relationships, and efficacy supportive of participants becoming community change agents. According to participants, Photovoice fostered these changes by (a) empowering them as experts on their lives and community, (b) fostering deep reflection, and (c) creating a context safe for exploring diverse perspectives. The implications of these findings for the science and practice of community psychology are discussed.

A central issue in the use of rapid evaluation and assessment methods (REAM) is achieving a balance between speed and trustworthiness. In this article, the authors review the key differences and common features of this family of methods and present a case example that illustrates how evaluators can use rapid evaluation techniques in their own work. In doing so, the authors hope to (a) introduce readers to a family of techniques with which they may be unfamiliar, (b) highlight their strengths and limitations, and (c) suggest appropriate contexts for use. Ultimately, the authors hope that REAM becomes a valuable addition to evaluators' toolkits.

Although participatory action research has become an increasingly popular method with youth, involving them in problem identification, analysis, intervention, and/or feedback, few PAR projects tend to involve youth in all of these phases-particularly the data analysis phase. Yet involvement in the data analysis phase of a research effort can help to promote critical awareness of the targeted issues, potentially increasing the effectiveness of subsequent PAR stages. In addition, although many YPAR projects aim to promote the critical consciousness of their youth participants, some projects struggle to promote this awareness, often because the methods used are not well matched to the developmental needs of their participants. In this paper we present the ReACT Method, a PAR approach specifically designed to promote local knowledge production and critical consciousness by engaging youth in the problem identification, data analysis, and feedback stages of research. Given the lack of attention in the literature to the methods used for engaging youth in these processes, we provide detailed descriptions of the methods we developed to engage youth in problem identification and qualitative data analysis.

Community-building initiatives strive to involve residents as the drivers of the change process, involving them in an array of activities including collective action efforts. Recent evaluations of many of these initiatives, however, suggest that developing the levels of resident involvement needed in such efforts is challenging. This study examines the neighborhood conditions that are related to whether and how much residents become involved in individual activism and collective action efforts. A random-digit-dial phone survey of 460 residents in 7 distressed neighborhoods suggested that while demographic variables were relatively unimportant, resident perceptions of neighborhood readiness (i.e., hope for the future and collective efficacy) and capacity for change (i.e., social ties and neighborhood leadership), and the level of neighborhood problems were strongly related to whether and how much residents were involved in individual and collective action efforts. Moreover, different elements of these neighborhood conditions were more or less important depending on the type and level of resident involvement. For example, while perceptions of neighborhood problems was the strongest predictor of whether an individual became involved at all, perceived strength of neighborhood leadership was the strongest predictor of an individual's level of activity. The implications of these findings for practitioners and scientists are discussed.

This study found that during group decision-making discussions, shared information (i.e., information held by all group members) was brought into discussion earlier, and was more likely to be mentioned overall, than was unshared information (i.e., unique information held by just one member or another). These results are consistent with a dynamic information sampling model of group discussion. It also was found that groups with a participative leader discussed more information (both shared and unshared) than groups with a directive leader, but that directive leaders were more likely to repeat information (especially unshared) than participative leaders. Finally, it was found that leadership style and the information held by the leader prior to discussion interacted to influence group decision quality. The relevance of these findings for existing contingency theories of leadership is discussed.