Abstract

Developing partnerships with school districts and community agencies is quite popular and viewed as a necessity for those entities in helping them accomplish their mission. For school psychology programs, it assists in providing quality training to prepare students for practice in a variety of settings. As detailed in this chapter, partnerships can be tricky and need to be developed in a thoughtful and organized manner. Over the years, mandates, initiatives, and challenging societal issues have spurred school districts to seek out partnerships to assist them in meeting the needs of both their students and staff. The authors’ experiences—as well as writings about community partnerships—have revealed that it is critically important that partnerships work both ways. Thus, relationship building is the key step, with both parties identifying the why, the what, and the how of the partnership. There is a great opportunity to expand these partnerships to also engage in community action research. As programs explore ways to expand their partnerships, it is hoped that this chapter will provide basic guidance in ways to build partnerships and develop strategies on how to sustain those partnerships over time.