Abstract
Healthcare in this nation and the nature of the workforce are experiencing the most dramatic transformation in history. With healthcare reform, health professionals are increasingly being called upon to be leaders in creating a wide variety of community partnerships to influence and document accessible, high-quality, cost-effective service systems. In particular, community partnerships between private and public sectors of society need to be coordinated to achieve optimal health for children with special healthcare needs, and their families and communities. Healthy People 2010 objectives encourage new partnership development between the private-public sectors of healthcare in collaboration with families and communities. The reformulation of healthcare and the workforce likewise calls for a revision of professional education to produce leaders who have the competency to create and engage in partnerships on behalf of children with special healthcare needs. In this article, a nursing training grant's model of leadership is discussed that encompasses the full spectrum of private-public partnerships using the Maternal Child Healthcare Service Pyramid model, with particular emphasis on the interface among 4 service levels: (1) direct healthcare services, (2) enabling/advocacy services, (3) population-based services, and (4) infrastructure-building services. An additional leadership dimension, cultural competency, is identified as an essential aspect of leaders who engage in partnership building with diverse communities. Finally, the training grant's formative and summative evaluation process is discussed, and illustrated by presenting data that illustrate culturally competent leadership.