Culture of Collaboration: How Madison County Government Drew from its Roots and used Rural Appalachian Values to Increase Government Participation through COVID Service Delivery

This study employs a storytelling approach to describe how a small, rural county in southern Appalachia drew from its roots to combat a pandemic, and in the process increased its resilience. In Madison County, leaders supported their communities by developing cross-sector collaborations that dramatically increased public participation on issues that most affected the county: education access, community outreach, food security and COVID vaccination delivery. Leaders built upon cultural norms and values–honest intent, community spirit, kindness, helping neighbors, hard work, and self-reliance–to increase participation. The results are modeled as an intervention, a flowchart that includes prior county operational norms, cultural norms and values, new models for government operations, and impacts on service delivery. There is a particular focus on mechanisms, the often-unspoken psychological processes that supported the transition in government operations and community and individual participation. Employing storytelling techniques amplifies the explanation of how the processes increased the county’s resilience, and outlines a way of working that they will use to address existing and new complex challenges as they arise.