Collaborative News

New Web Tool Helps Collaboratives Develop Own Web Sites

Fourteen collaboratives in Region 8 now have a new Web-based tool to help tell their stories over the Internet. The collaboratives are part of a pilot program led by the Public Affairs and Policy team of Family Connection Partnership for collaboratives to design, develop and launch their own Web sites using user-friendly technology.

Chattahoochee, Clay, Crisp, Dooly, Harris, Macon, Marion, Muscogee, Quitman, Randolph, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, and Webster counties are currently testing their newly launched sites.

What are the benefits of developing and launching a new collaborative Web site?

• Create, develop and maintain your site for free.
• Schedule your meetings and events with the event calendar.
• Share collaborative information and documents with community partners.
• Manage your own updates.
• Promote your collaborative over the Internet, as well as the network of 159 county collaboratives across the state.

How did this effort begin?

The Public Affairs and Policy team began working on the collaborative Web pages last year after receiving feedback from focus groups that collaboratives wanted a better way to promote their work, share resources, and keep in touch with their partners and communities over the Internet. The team then worked with i360 Group, an Atlanta company specializing in Web-based application solutions, to build the final product.

Coordinators Rachael Oliver (Macon), Angela Westra (Sumter), and Sherry Witherington (Stewart) participated in the first test group to design and launch their collaborative Web sites using the new tool.

"It's a great way to market your collaborative," said Westra while she added her collaborative logo to the home page. "Plus, the best part is that it's free."

Within minutes, Westra also loaded her monthly collaborative newsletter and filled in the calendar of events to include collaborative meetings.

"Our county doesn't have the resources to develop a county Web site," said Witherington, "so our collaborative Web site has the potential to serve the whole county. In my opinion, this is one of the best services Family Connection Partnership has offered."

Oliver agreed. "Our partners have been asking for an easy way to access our resource directory," she said. "Now we can post it to our Web site and make it available to the whole county."

What do the new collaborative Web sites look like?

Each collaborative Web site has a consistent design with six standard pages-home, news, success stories, event calendar, about us, and contact us. Each collaborative also can customize the Web site with photos, documents, and additional pages, including goals, links, resources, partners, photo gallery, reports, publications, annual plans, and fact sheets. In addition, two global pages link to the Family Connection Partnership Web site-FCP home page and FC search.

What do I need to develop and launch my collaborative Web site?

A computer, an Internet connection, Internet Explorer (no additional software is required), and a training session from Family Connection Partnership are all that you need to launch your own site. Family Connection Partnership will provide training and technical support and launch an official rollout of new Web sites for all collaboratives in phases through next year. The sites are offered free to all collaboratives.

How do I get more information?

To learn more about developing your own Web site, plan to attend a Web design and development workshop during the Family Connection Conference, Oct. 16 - 18, in Athens. Additional trainings will be held through next year.

To get a perspective from Family Connection Partnership on the pilot of the collaborative Web sites, read a related article in the Family Connection Partnership News section of this issue of Connected.

View collaborative Web pages for the following Region 8 counties by clicking on individual county names:

Chattahoochee, Clay, Crisp, Dooly, Harris, Macon, Marion, Muscogee, Quitman, Randolph, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, Webster