Donna J. Cherry

Addressing Barriers to University-Community Collaboration: Organizing by Experts or Organizing the Experts?

Abstract University-community partnerships, and COPC programs in particular, offer important opportunities for traditionally segregated groups to work together in collaborative relationships. The challenge of bringing people who possess distinct differences in background and social power together is a long-standing issue. Class, status, and organizational differences may impede collaboration. This article discusses the history of COPC as social policy and reviews an evaluation report of successful community-university partnerships. Drawing from the community organizing literature in sociology and social work, this article suggests community organizing methods that address structural obstacles to collaborative work. Especially in COPC programs characterized by multiple interactions, it is the community based organization (CBO) which has greatest facility to equalize the playing field between disparate groups. The role of community organizers in CBOs is to acknowledge and disrupt the structural inequalities inherent in these relationships. The community organizer must resist the role of expert or buffer between the community and university and instead strive toward authentic collaboration.

Who Is Willing to Foster Children With Disabilities

Children with disabilities represent a significant and increasing proportion of children in foster care. In a national sample of 304 foster mothers we identified two groups of mothers, one willing to foster children with any type of disability except HIV/AIDS (51%) (Unconditional mothers), and a second group who were more selective (49%) (Selective mothers). Unconditional mothers fostered longer, fostered more children, and had more foster children in their homes.