We seek to perform longitudinal and cross-systems research on cooperation among agencies serving the mentally ill in a local community, and to codify network analytic survey methods for such study. The major objective is to ascertain structures, conditions and consequences of cooperation at three levels. Cooperation will be analyzed at the level of relationships between agencies in terms of resource exchanges and other working relations (specifically how personal contacts between agencies are affected by and affect more formal relations). Cooperation will be examined at the agency-level in terms of operation of an agency in its environment of other agencies (specifically how an agency's characteristics affect its location as more or less central and autonomous in the system thus making for differential power and effectiveness in dealing with its environment, and, conversely, how the agency is influenced by its environment). Cooperation will be investigated at the community- or system-level in terms of centralization and differentiation into cooperating subsystems (specifically how systems differ and are stable or change by equilibriating processes or intervention). These substantive aims will be pursued through causal and network modelling of cooperation in systems of services for mentally ill. Another objective is to improve survey research methods for evaluating cooperation among mental health service agencies; specifically survey design for researching interagency relationships, and selection of kinds of relation for survey. Analyses will use secondary data: cross-section surveys in Syracuse (69 agencies) and Schenectady (45) and two-wave surveys in Onondaga (32) and Orange (21) countries in New York and three-wave surveys in Clarion (ca.50) and Mercer (ca.50) counties in Pennsylvania. the survey s provide data on each agency's characteristics, behaviors and opinions and kinds of relations with other agencies.
