University-Community Partnerships

General Description
The university-community partnership is the collaboration between a graduate social work education program and community health and social service agencies that serve older adults and their families.

While all field programs in social work education forge relationships with agencies to provide field instruction, most have followed the traditional top-down structure in which agencies adopt university educational guidelines to provide students with fieldwork experience.

HPPAE university-community partnerships are intentionally constructed to be more collaborative in nature, with universities and community agencies acting as true partners in executing the following essential functions:

• Design the HPPAE field education program for students specializing in aging
  
• Recruit students to the HPPAE
  
• Oversee implementation of the HPPAE
  
• Evaluate the programs effectiveness and revise as needed
  
• Cultivate and garner resources to keep the program running
  
  

Benefits of a University-Community Partnership
The synergy created by the partnerships bridges the traditional town-gown disconnects between academic and practice communities, and results in significant gains for all the stakeholders, including students and older adults. Among the benefits:

• Students graduate with a more realistic grounding in real-world settings
  
• Older adults and caregivers receive qualified care adapted to their needs
  
• Faculty gain a richer understanding of current service delivery systems, resources, and needs that they can integrate into their curricula
  
• Agency practitioners learn or update their knowledge of aging and assessment and intervention skills
  
• Employers gain more plug-and-play social workers when they hire HPPAE graduates
  
• Agencies engage and collaborate more with other agencies as educational partners
  
• The partnership can help identify service or knowledge gaps, which may lead to strengthening services and/or commissioning or conducting research
  

Implementation Guidelines
It may not always be possible to implement all components at the same time. The most important one, however, is the university-community partnership. Once this leadership structure is in place, you will have the foundation to build the other components.

To cement your university-community partnership, take the following steps:

• Develop a core leadership group. Interest in developing an HPPAE in your local community is likely to start with an individual or a small group of people. The success of the HPPAE depends on this core groups ability to garner a broader base of collaborators and support within the social work school, university, and provider community.
• Create a university-community partnership. This group is the anchor of the HPPAE, responsible for developing the program and making it a success. Its role is to build consensus, make decisions, and instill a sense of ownership for the HPPAE among university and community stakeholders.
• Key members in the partnership may include, but are not limited to, social workers, social work supervisors, agency directors, community activists, consumers, clergy, state and local officials, policy makers, care coordinators, such as geriatric care managers, and students or graduates.
  
• Work to build consensus for your rotational model. Secure the input and support of your community agency partners from the beginning as you develop your rotational model. This early buy-in will make adoption and implementation of the model easier in the long run.
  
• Identify additional field sites. Work with your field education office to determine additional field sites that serve older adults beyond the agencies that are formal members of your university-community partnership. The HPPAE is an opportunity to approach new agencies or reengage with field agencies that may not have recently had students. Your field education office is a key stakeholder too, and should be consulted regarding placements for HPPAE students.