Partnerships and Collaboration
This article describes partnership and community capacity building efforts and examines community impact, defined as successful linkages to resources and changes in stress tolerance capacity among community members. Community capacity building was conceptualized as dissemination of trauma-informed education and training, community outreach and engagement, and linkage of community members to resources. Findings include: training opportunities were widespread, resource linkage type shifted from basic services and health care to food distribution, and significant improvements occurred in coping through emotional and instrumental support (did not report stress tolerance). This demonstrated the effectiveness of community-based partnerships as capacity building strategies, as partnerships had already laid the groundwork and established trust within their communities, resulting in a nimble, local response to a global crisis. The partnerships’ response to the pandemic shows how organizations that are part of a network are able to leverage resources, new ideas, and knowledge to respond to community needs.