Introducing the Evidence2Success Tool Kit

Dur­ing the past decade, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Evidence2Success^® frame­work has helped com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and pub­lic sys­tems in six local­i­ties improve the well-being of chil­dren and youth. These six sites are: Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island; Mobile and Sel­ma, Alaba­ma; Kearns Town­ship in Salt Lake Coun­ty, Utah; Lib­er­ty City in Mia­mi, Flori­da; and South City in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee.

Explore the Evidence2Success Tool Kit

This work has informed the Foundation’s Evidence2Success Tool Kit aimed at aid­ing com­mu­ni­ties of every size — from small rur­al school dis­tricts to large met­ro­pol­i­tan areas — gath­er data and align fund­ing to improve out­comes for young peo­ple and families.

The tool kit uti­lizes com­mu­ni­ty-test­ed tools, strate­gies and tech­ni­cal assis­tance to help edu­ca­tors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers and orga­ni­za­tions bet­ter under­stand and address social and emo­tion­al issues — such as sub­stance use and abuse, bul­ly­ing and more — that impacts chil­dren and their families.

“The Evidence2Success Tool Kit con­nects indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions who sup­port young peo­ple with free access to a set of incred­i­bly valu­able resources,” says Pamela Lawrence, the Foundation’s direc­tor of Nation­al Com­mu­ni­ty Strate­gies. ​“Using these tools, our part­ners can col­lect essen­tial data about young peo­ple and their needs and iden­ti­fy crit­i­cal fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to sup­port the selec­tion of evi­dence-based programs.”

The Evidence2Success Framework 

Since 2017, Evidence2Success com­mu­ni­ties have lever­aged $15 mil­lion across pub­lic sys­tems includ­ing child wel­fare, juve­nile jus­tice, schools and pub­lic health sys­tems. With tools and sup­port from the Casey Foun­da­tion and its part­ners, these com­mu­ni­ties have:

• built effec­tive collaboratives;
• used data to under­stand how young peo­ple are doing;
• select­ed proven pro­grams to address chal­lenges and improve out­comes; and
• devel­oped financ­ing and action plans to sup­port these pro­grams over the long term.

What’s Inside the Evidence2Success Tool Kit

The tool kit is designed for groups of advo­cates; city and state agency lead­ers; com­mu­ni­ty- and faith-based orga­ni­za­tions; data users; elect­ed offi­cials; school lead­ers and oth­ers who want to improve out­comes for young peo­ple in their communities.

It starts with two assess­ments to help iden­ti­fy the tools that lead­ers are ready to use and the free resources that can help them prepare.

Some resources avail­able via the tool kit include:

• The Youth Expe­ri­ence Sur­vey, which paints a com­mu­ni­ty-lev­el pic­ture of youth well-being, needs and strengths and helps to iden­ti­fy the key con­tribut­ing fac­tors for these issues. Addi­tion­al­ly, the sur­vey builds local con­sen­sus about pri­or­i­ties — such as sup­port­ing men­tal health — and match­es these pri­or­i­ties with proven pre­ven­tion and ear­ly inter­ven­tion pro­grams, which can be includ­ed in appli­ca­tions for state and fed­er­al grant pro­grams. When re-admin­is­tered, the sur­vey results can help reveal sig­nif­i­cant changes and trends.
• Fund map­ping and strate­gic financ­ing tools that help com­mu­ni­ties iden­ti­fy local, state and nation­al fund­ing sources and invest in pro­grams based on their unique needs and priorities. 
• The Blue­prints for Healthy Youth Devel­op­ment reg­istry, which helps part­ners match pro­grams to young people’s strengths and needs.

For addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion, con­tact Mil­dred John­son.

Learn how com­mu­ni­ties use the Evidence2Success frame­work to fund and imple­ment evi­dence-based programs