Collaboration

I recently attended some early childhood meetings in California. As part of a retreat with an early childhood organization, one of the main issues discussed was making efforts to collaborate with other agencies providing early childhood services. I hear that around the country quite often. It seems to be difficult for some agencies to collaborate services for young children. It is disturbing because as long as multiple agencies are providing early childhood services, we will need to collaborate and do what is best for children. As long as the players have the attitude that, "We provide much better service and know what we are doing," we will never have true collaboration. I challenge all the key players to do what is best for children, not their individual egos. Having said that, I applaud the areas of the country that seem to have seamless services and collaboration. Unfortunately, those are the exceptions not the rule.