"Fighting back" against substance abuse : the structure and function of community coalitions

ENGLISH :
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Fighting Back (FB) program was one of the first efforts to develop "community coalitions" to reduce drug and alcohol problems. The challenges of coalition building are described and analyzed based on fieldwork from 10 of the 14 urban communities where the program operated. The possibilities and limits of broad-based participation in decision making and interagency collaboration are described. The program triggered a vertical dynamic in its effort to integrate grassroots and elite participation. This dynamic involved negotiation for control within the local program. Structures that encouraged more grassroots-elite integration in the local programs were: 1) relative cohesion and political strength among grassroots leadership; and 2) a grantee agency with resources to distribute and relative freedom from constraints imposed by having to compete in the local political arena and with other service providers. The program initiated a horizontal dynamic in its effort to rationalize the delivery of services. Competition, segmentation, and the mandate to be broadly inclusive were barriers to effective collaboration. Short-term collaboration among agencies emerged around concretely defined, shared goals. Longer-term collaboration was infrequent but emerged on a smaller scale around grant writing, legislative advocacy, and educational events for professionals. Coordination proved difficult because relevant policies were typically set by state legislatures rather than in local communities. (Author's abstract.)