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 Formerly known as the California Center for Dispute Resolution, the Center for Collaborative Policy (CCP) is a joint program of California State University at Sacramento and the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. The mission of the Center is to build the capacity of public agencies, stakeholder groups, and the public to use collaborative strategies to improve policy outcomes. Specifically, the Center seeks to (1) enhance the existing capacity of governing institutions to use collaborative methods while assisting communities and the public to collaboratively interact with governing institutions; (2) create and share knowledge about collaborative public policy development and capacity building; (3) nurture Californias collaborative policy-development and civic-engagement network; and (4) provide opportunities for practitioners ongoing professional growth.
Services available. CCP offers services in the areas of Collaborative Policy and Conflict Resolution (stakeholder planning, mediation and policy development), Collaborative Public Involvement (communication and dialogue among elected and appointed officials and citizens), Organizational Development (transition survival, management-system implementation and goal attainment), Training (customized instruction in collaborative problem solving skills), and Research (evaluation and theory development).
The Center for Collaborative Policy recently has completed a number of projects in the central California region. Two of these include the following:
South Bay Salt Ponds Restoration Project. This effort began as a stakeholder and organizational assessment process to elicit the interested communities issues and concerns regarding the restoration planning process of 15,100 acres of recently acquired salt ponds in the South San Francisco Bay. Based on the information gained in nearly 70 interviews with various parties, the Center assessment team prepared a comprehensive report detailing their findings and providing a set of recommendations for revision of the overall planning structure. The revised organizational structure advocates a prominent role for independent scientific input and intensive public participation in collaborative planning for restoration of the ponds. The CCP assessment team worked closely with the client in refining the organizational recommendations, which have been adopted by the project management team and approved by the projects executive leadership group. At the conclusion of the assessment, the project partners asked the Center to implement its recommended collaborative planning process for the Salt Pond restoration effort. In addition, the Center has developed and has been charged with coordinating the broad general public outreach and education program for the duration of the planning process. To read the more about this project, visit .
Sacramento Transportation and Air Quality Collaborative. Begun in 2001, this multi-stakeholder collaborative effort was designed to address transportation and air quality issues in the Sacramento region. The project is sponsored by eight Sacramento public agencies and facilitated by the Center. Its purpose is to coordinate a long-range and comprehensive strategy to improve transportation and air quality within a regional context, including relevant land-use and economic vitality strategies, through the use of an interest-based negotiation and visioning process. The collaborative includes broad representation from business, community, environmental, government, neighborhood, and social advocacy organizations. Over 100 community leaders, along with their alternates, participate in the collaborative. For more information, visit the collaboratives website at www.sactaqc.org
Susan Sherry is executive director of the Center for Collaborative Policy. For more information on CCP, visit their website at www.csus.edu/ccp.
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