Evidence2Success in Providence: A Report on Implementation

To help states and local­i­ties make smarter invest­ments on behalf of chil­dren, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion worked with sev­er­al part­ners to devel­op Evidence2Success, an inte­grat­ed pre­ven­tion mod­el that com­bines proven pro­grams and involves com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers in iden­ti­fy­ing youth needs and pre­scrib­ing appro­pri­ate inter­ven­tions. A new report, Evidence2Success in Prov­i­dence: Using Pro­grams That Work, pro­vides an overview of the model’s imple­men­ta­tion in the two pilot neigh­bor­hoods in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island — Casey’s first Evidence2Success community.

The report illus­trates the five core ele­ments of the Evidence2Success framework:

• Part­ner­ships among pub­lic sys­tems, elect­ed offi­cials and communities
• Strate­gic use of local data to iden­ti­fy needs and devel­op a con­sen­sus among part­ners on outcomes
• Financ­ing strate­gies to map cur­rent invest­ments, to shift fund­ing to cost-effec­tive pre­ven­tion pro­grams and to secure sus­tain­able funding
• Capac­i­ty build­ing to imple­ment evi­dence-based programs
• Mea­sure­ment of pop­u­la­tion-lev­el changes

The back­bone agency for Evidence2Success in Prov­i­dence is the Chil­dren and Youth Cab­i­net (CYC), a coali­tion of pri­vate orga­ni­za­tions and pub­lic agen­cies that seeks to ensure that all of the city’s chil­dren — ​“from cra­dle to career” — have access to an inte­grat­ed sys­tem of edu­ca­tion­al, health and oth­er ser­vices. Work­ing with neigh­bor­hood res­i­dents and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice providers, CYC has devel­oped a col­lab­o­ra­tive action plan for iden­ti­fy­ing local needs, select­ing evi­dence-based pro­grams and mea­sur­ing progress.

As doc­u­ment­ed in the report, the ini­tial results in Prov­i­dence have been promis­ing — both in improv­ing out­comes for chil­dren and in chang­ing the ways pub­lic sys­tems serve them. In 2015, for exam­ple, the CYC received a Health Equi­ty Zone grant from the Rhode Island Depart­ment of Health, which will help scale evi­dence-based pro­grams in the pilot neigh­bor­hoods. The four-year grant has the poten­tial to bring more than $1 mil­lion in fund­ing to these efforts.

Evidence2Success in Prov­i­dence has pro­vid­ed spe­cif­ic lessons for the ini­tia­tive, as well as gen­er­al insights for fun­ders and com­mu­ni­ties imple­ment­ing place-based strate­gies to improve the lives of vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and fam­i­lies. These insights include:

• Data are key to align­ing diverse partners.
• A local back­bone orga­ni­za­tion is essen­tial to dri­ving and sus­tain­ing the work.
• Cham­pi­ons cre­ate buy-in among key local audiences.
• Adap­ta­tions are pos­si­ble, but must be approached with care.
• Lead­er­ship changes will hap­pen; be pre­pared for them.

Based on its expe­ri­ence in Prov­i­dence, Casey added three more Evidence2Success com­mu­ni­ties: Mobile and Sel­ma, Alaba­ma, and Kearns Town­ship in Salt Lake Coun­ty, Utah. To encour­age fur­ther repli­ca­tion, the Evidence2Success devel­op­ment team has gath­ered and pro­duced a wide range of man­u­als and tools. ​“Our goal has always been to make Evidence2Success as trans­fer­able as pos­si­ble,” says Suzanne Barnard, direc­tor of the Casey Foundation’s Evi­dence-Based Prac­tice Group. ​“Prov­i­dence was our ear­ly adopter. Their strong part­ner­ship has led to improve­ments in out­comes that give us con­fi­dence in this approach.”