Models of Collaboration Between Community Service Agencies and Faith-Based Institutions

Abstract

This chapter focuses specifically on models of collaboration between community service agencies providing intervention and prevention responses to domestic violence and immigrant specific FBls. As a critical stakeholder in most immigrant communities, FBIs have offered both invaluable resources to intervention and prevention efforts and resistance to messages of gender equity and social change often inherent in domestic violence services. Collaboration between these institutions often involves strategies requiring careful and long-term negotiation of common values and goals. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the contemporary role of FBIs as providers of health and human services in the USA. This is followed by a more focused look at FBIs and their contributions to domestic violence intervention and prevention as well as a closer examination of FBls in immigrant communities. The next section introduces a case study of Shimtuh, a Korean domestic violence and sexual assault program located in the San Francisco Bay area, and the 12 year evolution of its faith-based initiative reveals the development of four variant models of collaboration: (1) community outreach; (2) training and technical assistance for faith leaders; (3) community organizing campaign; and (4) the collaborative development of a specific faith based curriculum addressing domestic violence. This case study further illuminates underlying components of these models including shifting formulations of the collaborative relationship, goals of collaboration, sector targets, and anticipated and actual outcomes. The chapter concludes with a reflection on implications for future collaborative work between community service agencies and FBls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)