New Brochure Highlights the Foundation’s Evidence2Success Framework

A new brochure high­lights the ele­ments of the Foundation’s Evidence2Success frame­work and mile­stones achieved for the first com­mu­ni­ties to use it in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island.

Evidence2Success pro­motes healthy child devel­op­ment by sup­port­ing pub­lic invest­ment in pro­grams proven to help young peo­ple. Evidence2Success was devel­oped by the Foun­da­tion and sev­er­al part­ner orga­ni­za­tions. In 2012, Prov­i­dence was select­ed as the first demon­stra­tion site for Evidence2Success. The Prov­i­dence Chil­dren & Youth Cab­i­net leads the local ini­tia­tive, with cru­cial input from com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships and local youth-serv­ing organizations.

Two com­mu­ni­ties – West End and South Prov­i­dence – were select­ed as part­ners to launch pro­grams in 2014. Lead­ers from the Prov­i­dence Pub­lic School Depart­ment, the Rhode Island Depart­ment of Chil­dren, Youth and Fam­i­lies and the Rhode Island Depart­ment of Health par­tic­i­pate in the part­ner­ship, exam­ined pub­lic funds and have com­mit­ted to the goals of the Evidence2Success framework.

The Prov­i­dence effort has reached a num­ber of impor­tant milestones:

• More than 5,000 youth in the 6^th, 8^th, 10^th and 12^th grades com­plet­ed the Youth Expe­ri­ence Sur­vey – more than 85% of eli­gi­ble students.
• Stake­hold­ers used sur­vey results to iden­ti­fy three pri­or­i­ty out­comes: Tru­an­cy and Absen­teeism, Emo­tion­al Well-Being and Behav­ior (Self-report­ed Delinquency).
• A group of com­mu­ni­ty and sys­tems stake­hold­ers set improve­ment goals for each pri­or­i­ty out­come, to be mea­sured through future admin­is­tra­tion of the sur­vey. This group also rec­om­mend­ed a port­fo­lio of evi­dence-based pro­grams proven effec­tive in affect­ing these out­comes, and lead­ers com­mit­ted pub­lic funds to run the programs.

The brochure includes five ques­tions city and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers should ask them­selves in con­sid­er­ing whether to for­mal­ly adopt Evidence2Success framework:

• Does your city include a large per­cent­age of low-income families?
• Do your child-serv­ing sys­tems – such as schools, pub­lic health and child wel­fare – already have a mech­a­nism for work­ing togeth­er, such as an inter­a­gency com­mis­sion or children’s cabinet?
• Are the lead­ers of these sys­tems ready to com­mit up front to shift­ing a per­cent­age of their bud­get to a com­bined invest­ment in proven programs?
• Do your sys­tems have part­ner­ships with the com­mu­ni­ties they serve, such as exist­ing com­mit­tees with res­i­dent representation?
• Will your school sys­tem com­mit to con­duct sur­veys, and to pro­vide and ana­lyze data?

Lead­ers who can answer ​“yes” to these ques­tions can con­tact the Foun­da­tion to find out more.

View the new Evidence2Success brochure