Resources

Community Organizational Assessment Tool
Helps guide discussions about how a team is functioning. Although the questions are structured for nonprofit board members, the form can be easily adapted for use by SARTs.

Collaboration: A Training Curriculum to Enhance the Effectiveness of Criminal Justice Teams: Instructional Manual
Assists multidisciplinary criminal justice teams in establishing or enhancing collaborative relationships. All teams can benefit from this curriculum, whether newly formed or firmly established. The manual includes information on team values, vision, problem identification, roles and responsibilities, concurrent discussion groups, group dynamics, team and project life cycles, and goals, objectives, and critical work activities.

Collaboration Toolkit: How to Build, Fix, and Sustain Productive Partnerships
Identifies nine components of a successful collaboration: stakeholders with a vested interested in the issue, trust among and between the partners, a shared vision and common goals, expertise among partners to solve community problems, teamwork strategies, open communication, motivated partners, sufficient means to implement and sustain the collaborative effort, and an action plan. As your SART develops and matures, revisit each component to assess the status of the collaboration.

Conflict Resolution Education: A Guide to Implementing Programs in Schools, Youth-Serving Organizations, and Community and Juvenile Justice Settings
Advances the development of conflict resolution in educational and juvenile justice settings. SARTs can use the material as a reference tool.

Facilitation Skills for Managers
Trains managers who run meetings or lead task groups. The modules cover a range of topics, including forming groups, handling challenges, and completing the work.

Facilitation Skills for Trainers
Helps experienced trainers who want to develop group participation and discussion skills. The material includes information on learning behaviors, facilitation strategies, and dealing with conflict.

The Role of Facilitators and Staff in Supporting Collaborative Teams
Describes the skills and characteristics of effective facilitators. For example, the importance of helping to establish direction for the team, maximizing the contribution of all members, creating a team process that is efficient and focused on outcomes, keeping an accurate record of team members' ideas and decisions, and maintaining an environment that allows members to work productively and collaboratively.

Strategies for Building Effective Work Teams, Participant's Manual
Covers critical elements of teamwork and stages of team development. The manual provides ways to assess organizational and individual readiness for developing and using work teams, developing high performance work teams, implementing interventions to enhance team productivity, and creating strategies to overcome barriers to team development.