Casey Joins National Partnership To Tackle Disparities in Rural America

Save the Chil­dren, which works in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties across the Unit­ed States where child pover­ty rates are high and resources are low, has joined forces with Striv­e­To­geth­er, Part­ners for Edu­ca­tion at Berea Col­lege and the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion to devel­op and launch a first-of-its-kind col­lec­tive impact effort for rur­al Amer­i­ca. Designed to address com­plex social issues through a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach adapt­ed to the unique needs and inter­ests of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, the effort has kicked off in three pilot com­mu­ni­ties — Per­ry Coun­ty, Ky.; Whit­ley Coun­ty, Ky.; and Cocke Coun­ty, Tenn. — with the goal of improv­ing children’s lives from cra­dle to career.

As part of the effort, the Rur­al Accel­er­a­tor Ini­tia­tive will pro­vide $400,000 over three years to the three pilot com­mu­ni­ties — an unprece­dent­ed $1.2 mil­lion invest­ment of funds to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties to align action plans devel­oped in each com­mu­ni­ty to pri­or­i­tize kids and families.

“At Striv­e­To­geth­er, our mis­sion is to help com­mu­ni­ties trans­form how they serve chil­dren and fam­i­lies,” said Jen­nifer Blatz, Striv­e­To­geth­er pres­i­dent and CEO. ​“We know we can achieve more by work­ing togeth­er than apart and have proof from near­ly 70 com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try that the col­lec­tive impact of orga­ni­za­tions work­ing across sec­tors can influ­ence out­comes for every child. We are excit­ed to bring our proven approach to this ini­tia­tive and are proud to be part of a land­mark effort to accel­er­ate results for youth and fam­i­lies in rur­al America.”

Rur­al col­lec­tive impact com­bines lead­er­ship devel­op­ment, strate­gic invest­ments, local part­ner­ships and peer learn­ing to ensure chil­dren in rur­al Amer­i­ca enter school ready, have a suc­cess­ful edu­ca­tion and leave high school ready for a career or high­er edu­ca­tion. With the sup­port from the nation­al part­ners, rur­al com­mu­ni­ties are work­ing to change local sys­tems to improve results for chil­dren, with an ini­tial focus on ear­ly devel­op­men­tal mile­stones of kinder­garten-readi­ness and third-grade read­ing and math proficiency.

“We have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to har­ness the exper­tise of nation­al lead­ers in edu­ca­tion as well as the local com­mu­ni­ties where we work, to dri­ve progress toward pos­i­tive out­comes for chil­dren in rur­al Amer­i­ca,” said Bet­sy Zorio, vice pres­i­dent, Save the Children’s U.S. Pro­grams & Advo­ca­cy. ​“We are grate­ful to our part­ners for their sup­port, skills and knowl­edge and look for­ward to work­ing togeth­er to empow­er com­mu­ni­ties to cre­ate a suc­cess­ful cra­dle-to-career path­way for every child in rur­al Amer­i­ca. It’s our ambi­tion to take these learn­ings and scale to sup­port the near­ly 2.5 mil­lion chil­dren grow­ing up in pover­ty in rur­al communities.”

“This Rur­al Accel­er­a­tor Ini­tia­tive rec­og­nizes that trans­for­ma­tive and last­ing change in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties must be led by com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers” said Drea­ma Gen­try, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Part­ners for Edu­ca­tion. ​“To do this dif­fi­cult work, com­mu­ni­ties need part­ners who can pro­vide the resources need­ed to imple­ment change, and we are proud to sup­port the peo­ple in rur­al areas who are lead­ing the way.”

“The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has honed an approach to lead­er­ship devel­op­ment — called Results Count™ — that it’s bring­ing to the Rur­al Accel­er­a­tor Lead­er­ship Pro­gram,” said Shan­da Crow­der, senior asso­ciate at the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“Par­tic­i­pants will become more skilled at mak­ing effec­tive and last­ing changes that will help chil­dren grow up health­i­er and bet­ter off.”

Build­ing on the suc­cess of StriveTogether’s work in col­lec­tive impact across the coun­try, Save the Children’s lega­cy of serv­ing chil­dren in rur­al Amer­i­ca, Part­ners for Education’s achieve­ments through­out Appalachia, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s pow­er­ful Results Count lead­er­ship devel­op­ment approach, the nation­al part­ners plan to expand rur­al col­lec­tive impact into addi­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties in 2020.