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This Section: Common Topics or Terms
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Inter-Ministry & Inter-Agency Committees
Inter-Ministry & Inter-Agency Committees are one of several collaborative structures that governments can use to coordinate approaches, programs and interventions promoting inclusion, equity, health, safety, personal and social development. Other structures include designated inter-ministry coordination mechanisms, time-limited task forces with specific duties as well as consortia and broadly-based coalitions/alliances that can also include other organizations and funding sources. The membership of inter-ministry and inter-agency committees should be limited to officials of the participating ministries or agencies. The functions of these committees is ongoing and the mandates can expand or contract depending on the agreements established among the ministries. The intended outputs from such committees include:
This summary was first posted in January 2021 as a "first draft" The following individuals or organizations have contributed to the development of this topic. We encourage readers to submit comments or suggested edits by posting a comment on the Mini-blog & Discussion Page for this section or posting a comment below:
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This summary was first posted in June 2012. Currently it has been posted as an "excerpt/adaptation", "first draft" or "revised draft" and "first or revised edition" version. The following individuals or organizations have contributed to the development of this topic. We encourage readers to submit comments or suggested edits by posting a comment on the Mini-blog & Discussion Page for this section or posting a comment below: Intersectoral Cooperation, Actions and Partnerships can be defined in general or specific ways. Sectors can be described broadly such as the private, voluntary or public sectors. A sector can include a variety of stakeholders including government ministries, their local agencies and authorities, employees and their unions or professional associations, large organizations within the sector such as universities, faculties, hospitals and employers, donor organizations, voluntary organizations representing citizens, clients, families and young people and others. A paper prepared for the UN 2030 goals define “multi-stakeholder partnerships” (MSPs) as “voluntary and collaborative relation-ships between various parties, both public and non-public, in which all participants agree to work together to achieve a common purpose or undertake a specific task and, as mutually agreed, to share risks and responsibilities, resources and benefits”.Inter-sectoral partnerships can occur at different levels such as inter-governmental, inter-ministry, inter-agency and inter-professional coordination (required) or cooperation (voluntary) as well as whole of government approaches (required by policy decision). The levers which can be used to initiate, maintain, scale up and sustain intersectoral partnerships include whole of government strategies, action plans, consensus statements/declarations and coordination standards and procedures. Inter-sector cooperation and coordination is enacted through designated coordination mechanisms, inter-ministry and inter-agency committees, inter-ministry and inter-agency agreements and other demonstrations of cooperation. The types and degree of cooperation between sectors and organizations occurs along a continuum, with effectiveness, investments, risks and benefits varying as depicted below.
Level of Cooperation Activity Between Systems
In addition to the horizontal cooperation described above, school health promotion practice and research should pay more attention to the different levels of cooperation that occurs vertically between systems. Such cooperation will occur at these levels:
Intergovernmental Cooperation This level of cooperation has not been examined very often in the published research. Comparative studies of how national and state/provincial governments are cooperating in school health promotion and social development are needed. The few references that we did locate for this summary indicate that:
Padget, et al. (2004 conducted a qualitative study of 21 state-wide public health partnerships that were funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The study was examining the potential ways of acting upon a call from the Institute of Medicine to implement reforms in public health infrastructure so that such partnerships are created and used. Their findings indicate that while state-level partnerships share many of the challenges of local partnerships, state-level partnerships require more attention to organizational alliances, coordination of institutional change and strategic responses to political factors. This work shows that the nature of cooperation will differ according to the level at which it is solicited and implemented. Inter-agency Cooperation The Canadian Association of School Administrators (1990) has described inter-agency coordination in some detail. These factors which should be carefully considered as planners and proponents of inter-agency coordination overcome key conceptual and linguistic barriers to effective coordination. Some of these include:
Other barriers to inter-sector, organization and agency coordination that have been identified by the Canadian Association of School Administrators include:
Inter professional/Interdisciplinary Cooperation
Fuqua et al. (2004) discuss inter-disciplinary cooperation as a means for improving the science and prevention of substance abuse. They examine the potential contributions of trans-disciplinary science in conceptualization, methods and evidence in a case study of two university research centers. (They differentiate trans-disciplinary cooperation, where researchers use a joint conceptual framework from that of inter-disciplinary work together but still retain their own paradigms and multi-disciplinary where professions work independently or sequentially on a problem. There is not sufficient time or scope within the context of this paper to extend this discussion of trans-disciplinary cooperation further, but this is certainly a part of the capacity that we have labeled “formal and informal mechanisms for cooperation”. Since school-based and school-linked health promotion programs depend on the cooperation of ministries, agencies and professionals at all levels in order to be effective and sustainable, the relevance of these few references to such forms of cooperation is somewhat obvious. An ecological and system-based approach to school health promotion would seek to ensure that almost all plans, policies, programs and research/evaluation initiatives identify and describe changes in such types and levels of cooperation. References (To be added) This summary was first posted in January 2021 as a "first draft" The following individuals or organizations have contributed to the development of this topic. We encourage readers to submit comments or suggested edits by posting a comment on the Mini-blog & Discussion Page for this section or posting a comment below:
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Mini-Blog on Common Topics &Terms Here is our list of topics for this section: - Introduction & Overview - Education Equity, Inclusion & Success- Multi-component Approaches (MCAs) - Core Components
- Staff Wellness - Student Conduct & Discipline - Engaging/Empowering Youth - Parent Participation - Community Involvement
- Learning/Behaviour Models (LBMs) - Behaviour & Learning Theories - Government/Inter-sector Actions & Levers
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