COBB COLLABORATIVE INC

The Collaborative is the local representative of the Georgia Family Connection Partnership and works to improve outcomes for children and families across our community through the Partnership's five result areas. Our organization accomplishes this work in Cobb County by educating and engaging partners, leading and facilitating collaborations, and providing resources for organizations addressing major issues in our community like reading proficiency, homelessness, mental health and civic engagement. Our partners include nonprofit organizations, local governments, businesses, faith-based organizations, educational institutions, professional organizations, civic associations and engaged citizens.
Cobb Collaborative is the Prevent Child Abuse Georgia (PCA Georgia) local council for Cobb County. In this role as Prevent Child Abuse Cobb, the Collaborative continues to work within our programming areas to bolster child abuse and neglect prevention efforts and awareness in the community.
The Collaborative is the local point of contact for the Get GA Reading Campaign, a statewide initiative which has an overall goal of having all children reading proficiently by the end of 3rd grade. We work closely with both of our public school systems and host a Birth-5 Strategy team to work more intentionally in this space.
Similar to other communities, Cobb County has experienced an increase in the need for mental health services for our residents of all ages. During 2021, we became a regional coalition under the Resilient Georgia model which allowed us to expand our offerings of trauma-informed workshops, panel presentations, film screenings, mindful self compassion resource, digital and print resources and grow our social media reach. This is an initiative to raise awareness, promote resiliency and reduce stigma of mental health conditions. Our website includes information and resources in English and Spanish for service providers, parents, caregivers, educators, and more. We offer a wide array of trainings directly and regularly bring other trauma-credentialed trainings to the community. We are active on social media with our campaigns and released a digital Mental Health toolkit in 2022.
The Cobb Collaborative began intentionally focusing on the Veteran community in early 2020 when we organized a gathering of Veteran-serving organizations to encourage the sharing of information, best practices, challenges and collaborative opportunities in order to build a more cohesive network. We know that there are many well-intentioned organizations who provide services and programs to Veterans, but are operating in silos and therefore, our service delivery as a community is inefficient. As a result, many Veterans fall through the cracks, receiving either no services, partial services or inappropriate services. Despite having a large number of providers in our community that deliver services to Veterans, their focus is on the delivery of those services and not on finding the Veterans who need them. Therefore, far too many Veterans are unable to find or get connected with the provider that can best help them. Another short-coming that CCV addresses is getting Veterans the services they need much more quickly. CCV accomplishes our mission to connect struggling Veterans with the help they need and have earned by: 1. Utilizing an online data platform to capture and maintain the most comprehensive list of all Veteran Service Providers (VSPs) that serve Cobb County Veterans. 2.Training a team of Veteran Guides who will be available to guide struggling Veterans toward the most appropriate provider. 3. Tracking outcomes of Veterans who utilize these services to confirm they received the assistance they needed. 4. Elevating awareness of CCV among Veterans, residents and businesses in Cobb County as a resource that can connect struggling Veterans with providers who can help them. This will employ multiple means of communication to meet people where they are. The CCV program is housed under the Cobb Collaborative and is a signature program of the Collaborative's civic engagement priority.