Projects

A Community-Driven Initiative To Improve Outcomes For Children Pre-Birth Through Age Three

CAPD was selected to serve as intermediary in the first phase of an initiative of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to improve outcomes for young children in several states and communities in the Midwest Great Lakes Region. The intermediary's tasks during this first phase were to gather information to inform the selection of six to nine sites in the region and to work with these sites to develop the specific parameters of the initiative's design in collaboration with the foundation. The selected sites all had a foundation of previous collaborative work on behalf of young children and an interest in an approach that emphasized community capacity building as the engine for improving children's outcomes. The collaborative design work included facilitated reflection and self-assessment processes within each site, including initial community discussion processes focusing particularly on hearing from parents and informal leaders from diverse groups, cross-site teams focused on specific design issues, and a cross-site/cross-issue conference. CAPD prepared a design document for the initiative that built upon research from a wide variety of perspectives (from research on infant brain development to evaluations of community change processes) and drew upon the recommendations from the collaborative cross-site design work.