The Children and Family Fellowship is the Casey Foundation’s signature program to develop the potential of leaders in nonprofit, philanthropic and public organizations working to improve outcomes for children and families. The Fellowship explicitly strives to increase the pool of diverse, visionary leaders with the confidence and competence to lead and sustain major system reforms and community change initiatives.
The 21-month Fellowship program brings together leaders from varied professional backgrounds, geographic regions and racial and ethnic groups. This diverse group of Fellows becomes a powerful learning community that serves as both catalyst and support throughout this intensive experience.
Change is the hallmark of the Fellowship — personal and professional change, change in perspective and vision and change of scenery as Fellows travel to 10 seminars at the Casey Foundation in Baltimore and around the country. While balancing the demands of their current positions, Fellows participate in a series of leadership development opportunities, including executive seminars, peer consultations and individual coaching to provide real-time application and learning.
The cornerstone of the Fellowship experience is a series of 10 four- to five-day seminars that employ a dynamic, experiential learning approach. Designed by Fellowship faculty, Foundation staff and Fellows, the seminar series follows an arc of learning designed to build the competencies of Fellows to achieve results, close disparities and achieve equitable opportunities. The seminars are based on the core proposition that effective leaders understand that real change requires data-driven decision making, highly impactful and aligned strategies, an understanding of systems, true collaboration and the ability to lead through complexity and ambiguity.
Each seminar advances the Fellows’ work on acheiving results, explores real-time leadership challenges and provides the opportunity for peer consultation and connection to leaders who are producing measurable results for children and families and to organizations employing best practices. The seminars offer a concrete set of tools to aid Fellows in the realization of effective personal, organizational and systems change, building Fellows’ mastery of the competencies and skills of Results Count™ leadership. The seminars provide an opportunity for reflective practice, peer learning and networking.
To build Fellows’ capacity to achieve measurable results, each Fellow will be expected to identify a measurable change that he or she plans to achieve by the end of the Fellowship term. One unique aspect of the Class 11 Fellowship experience will be the overlay of the following result: All youth ages 14–24 have the necessary connections to school, work and family and achieve equitable outcomes of success. All applicants will be asked to connect their work to this result in some way and will work to strengthen their contribution to it.
This work — the Results Action Plan — takes place primarily “back home” between seminars and is reported on and refined during the seminars. The Fellows are expected to apply all of the tools and competencies that the Fellowship provides them to reach this result. They also will enlist trusted colleagues in their home organization to partner with them throughout the Fellowship term and provide support and accountability in reaching their intended target. The Fellows also will receive two visits from Fellowship faculty to help guide and support them.
As Fellows pursue their Results Action Plans, they will bring the tools and skills of the Fellowship back home into their organizations and systems and enlist their colleagues and stakeholders in achieving accelerated results. To this end, Fellows must have the support of their organizations to participate in the Fellowship as well as an organizational interest in integrating a results orientation to its work. Fellows will identify a key results partner who will serve as a “back home” partner in developing and implementing their Results Action Plan. This individual will have the opportunity to participate in a few Fellowship activities in order to build their own competency to achieve results.
The Casey Foundation funds the cost of tuition of the Children and Family Fellowship, as well as all program-related expenses, including:
If you have any questions about the Fellowship or how to apply, please contact Barbara Squires, director of Leadership Development, at 410.223.2938.
