Project SUCCESS: A Model for University-School-Community Partnerships

In the 1980s a flurry of educational reform activity took place, resulting in collaborative relationships between public schools and universities as a popular and promising vehicle to revitalize education in urban areas (Osajima, 1989). The hope for these collaborations has been that the bumping together of university and school cultures would have a positive effect on both institutions (Goodlad, 1993, p. 25). Most of these partnerships have been between a school or department of education within a university and local elementary and secondary schools (Goodlad, 1990). Although the social work literature has addressed the subject of partnership programs (Danis, Franklin, & Schwab, 1993; Joseph, 1992), the programs described do not involve an ongoing relationship between schools or departments of social work and school systems. This article describes a partnership between a department of social work in an urban university and the local public school system. The partnership also includes a nonprofit youth community services agency and area nursing homes