Recently, the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) published data on the 2022 pass rate for the ASWB licensing exam. The analysis concluded major disparities in pass rates for Black test takers, older adults, and other marginalized groups.

The data were published as a result of years of advocacy and pressure from the National Association of Social Workers, schools of social work, other social work organizations, and individual test takers. Previously, data on pass rates were never released.

I’ve shared my experience with preparing for the licensing exam before, and while majority of test takers pass this exam on the first try, questions about the fail rates were enough to warrant looking into this. Lack of social work licensure can result is loss of job opportunities for many social workers, so it makes sense to explore why these disparities continue to exist.

This is an example of bringing together a group of individuals who care about an issue, and work together to address it. Test takers, professors, licensing exam prep experts, exam test question writers, and more were all needed for this process.

Part of my role as a facilitator includes facilitating partnership meetings.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies a partnership as “organizations that share a common focus and combine resources to implement joint activities, avoid[ing] duplication of effort, ensuring synergy of resources, and enhanc[ing] overall leadership.” From my viewpoint, this also includes individuals who may not be part of an organization but hold a significant amount of knowledge, power, and connections.

Partnerships may develop in response to an emerging issue (such as disparities in test taking scores) and ideally, you’re bringing together individuals that care about the impact of this emerging issue.

A tricky aspect of building a partnership includes understanding the partnership’s purpose and selecting the appropriate individuals and organizations. Every entity mentioned in the licensing example plays a pivotal role in how students prepare for this exam and how the exam is written and administered.

Another aspect of building a partnership is understanding that, while everyone cares deeply about the issue, they have their own ideas for addressing it.

So, how do we bring together various important perspectives to reach a common goal? Here are seven questions to consider for building a partnership:

What’s the goal of this partnership?

Before you do anything else, this question needs a clear answer. Are you producing findings? What are you making the general public aware of?

Why do we want to build this partnership?

Outside of general knowledge sharing, most partnerships are developed to strengthen relationships between the members, their respective organizations if applicable, and to communities.

Who is responsible for leading this partnership?

On average, between 2-3 individuals or entities convene the partnership. Ideally, they have some commonalities but may have different vantage points, expertise, or skills.

How long will this partnership last?

Will the partnership have an end date or run indefinitely? This information is needed upfront before member recruitment begins.

Do we have what we need to build and sustain this partnership?

This question focuses on logistics and capacity for the partnership conveners. Consider these from March of Dimes’ Making Community Partnerships Work: A Toolkit (2007):

  • Staff and/or volunteers
  • In-kind resources (e.g. meeting space, technology, dissemination networks)
  • Connections to key influencers, communities and resources
  • Knowledge of the issue to be addressed
  • Training, support and technical assistance
  • Financial resources to compensate participants

Who do we want in the partnership, what is their expected level of labor, and what will they gain from participating?

This is the most complex of the partnership process and depends on the partnership’s goals.

Who are the most appropriate members? If the partnership focuses on the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., does it make sense to have members who aren’t located here or who don’t have at least have a presence in the area?

Do you want membership to comprise of a comprehensive roster of people, or will everyone have the same role but different community connections?

Are these partnerships that are new to the conveners, or are these individuals and entities you’ve partnered with before? Do they know each other? This impacts partnership dynamics as you’ll have to begin building trust (or in some cases, rebuild it.)

Also, what’s in it for the partners? Outside of sharing a passion for the issue, everyone needs to clearly see how their role connects to the bigger picture. Also, what level of labor is expected and will they be compensated?

How will we inform others of our work?

Conferences, blogs, social media, infographics, interviews, webinars, opinion-editorials, academic journals, toolkits, talking points, recommendations, and more. So many ways to share out partnership outcomes.

Key takeaway

There are many advantages and considerations for building and sustaining a partnership. Building a partnership creates strength in numbers, but lacking clarity on WHY this partnership exists, WHO should join, and HOW to move forward can result in an ineffective partnership.

Raise Your Voice: What factors do you consider when building (or choosing to join) a partnership? Share below in the comments sections.

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