Working with community organizations for nutrition intervention

Effective community nutrition interventions require nutritionand health professionals to collaborate with organizations thatserve as hosts or loci for programs. These organizations includeworkplaces, schools, cafeterias, restaurants and supermarkets.Although nutritionists need to develop collaborative workingrelationships with community organizations, they often lackknowledge about organizational change and experience difficultyinitiating and maintaining relationships. This paper describesconcepts from theories of organizational change and an exampleof how they were used to help formulate guidelines for developingand analyzing successful collaborative relationships. In a consensusdevelopment workshop guidelines were developed in five areas:(1) goals for mutual relationships; (2) initiation: decidingwhether to work with an organization; (3) strategies for workingwith host organizations; (4) identifying sources of resistanceto change; and (5) warning signs and strategic retreat. Applyingthese guidelines should result in more effective collaborativerelationships for community nutrition education.