| National Projects: Examples of U.S. — based projects in and among communities: |
| Inserting Mediation into Family Court: In 2003 and 2004 Counterparts led a planning process by facilitating the work of a cross-disciplinary team charged with offering mediation as a tool in child welfare cases within the family court system in Maryland. We ran meetings of attorneys, judges, child welfare professionals, social workers, and child and family advocates to develop collaborative/less litigious ways of handling child abuse and neglect cases. We then helped design training programs for the various parties and saw the project through to its implementation as an ongoing part of the court system. |
| Providing Cross-Cultural Training: Counterparts conducted training workshops on bilingual public speaking (addressing a mixed audience of monolingual Navajo speakers and monolingual English speakers) for Native American staff who provide social services to people in the Navajo Nation. We have worked with the Hopi Tribal Council to improve communication, teamwork, and long-term planning within the areas under the Council's jurisdiction (such as water, property management, and social services). We also have extensive experience with refugee women in the Southwest, teaching basic survival skills in a new culture and helping them access needed services. |
| Involving Youth in Government Programs: The County Executive and County Council of Montgomery County Maryland, regularly solicit input from an all-teenage board, the Youth Advisory Council. We have worked with this Council to plan and lead "Speak Outs," meetings where youth voice their views on issues. Counterparts trained youth facilitators and conveyed their recommendations in a report to county leaders. |
| Developing a Community's Mental Health Plan, and Getting it Funded: Counterparts served as a planning consultant to a Maryland mental health coalition responsible for developing a multi-agency grant proposal to provide intensive "wraparound" services to children and youth with emotional disturbance. We developed strategies to prompt collaboration within the interdisciplinary team, worked with family organizations to shape the proposal, and wrote the final grant request. In late 1999, this six-year project was funded for $13 million dollars. |
| Designing Video Training for Child Welfare Workers: Counterparts helped plan a three-year U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) national initiative to educate front-line child welfare workers about disabilities and developmental delays in children and their impact on family life. With an advisory group from academia, provider organizations, and family advocacy groups, we helped develop three videos and an in-service training curriculum for social service professionals. |
| Developing a "Court Watch": Counterparts has twice partnered with Montgomery County, Maryland's District Court, the county's substance abuse prevention program, its police department, and the State Attorneys' Office to create a "court watch" aimed at improving the ways young people cited for underage alcohol use are handled during their time in court and at the same time chronicling how drunk-driving cases are handled within the court system. We interviewed court-related organizations, designed the court watch process, created materials, recruited and trained volunteers, oversaw the collection of information, analyzed the results, and developed a final report for the County Council. At the request of the Chief Judge of the District Court, this project was carried out in the mid-1990s and was repeated in 2001-2002. |
| Running Bilingual Assistive Technology Displays in California and Illinois: Counterparts staff has set up and run bilingual assistive technology displays for the World Institute on Disability (WID)'s annual Bridges to Employment for Latinos with Disabilities conferences. These national training events held in California (2003) and Illinois (2004) connected Latinos with representatives from government agencies, national Latino business and civic organizations, and non-profit organizations. Using both Spanish and English, we trained people in state-of-the-art assistive technologies to increase their employability and facilitated workshops focused on job acquisition and retention. |
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