Building a School Ready Community

United Way Community Leaders Conference

May 13, 2014

Thrive in 5’s Genesis• Mayoral commitment to preventing the achievement

gap by promoting healthy development and school readiness

• Year-long, community-based strategic planning process involving 65 professionals from multiple sectors and 25 parents, as well as community meetings and working groups

Result:

Boston’s School Readiness Equation

Mission

• Boston Children Thrive• Ready Educators• School Readiness Pipeline

To ensure that children of all races, ethnicities, incomes, abilities, and languages have the opportunities and support they need for success in school and beyond.

Three Core Strategies

Thrive in 5’s ApproachCreate sustainable change in organizations, communities and systems by investing in capacity building and developing and supporting effective approaches to achieving positive outcomes for at-risk young children and their families.

Ready Educators

Build program quality and school partnerships to ensure improved child

outcomes

Boston Children Thrive

Develop a neighborhood based model to enable

increased parent engagement and

leadership

School Readiness Pipeline

Create a citywide universal screening

system for children birth to school entry

Universal School Readiness

Build Capacity + Support Effective Approaches = Sustainable Systems/Policy Change

2

Lessons Learned• Affecting system-change is challenging

and takes time• Ensuring continued engagement and buy-

in of key partners is critical to success• Developing approaches to data-collection

and measurement requires thoughtful planning and sufficient resources

• Engaging business partners still a challenge

Ready EducatorsBuilding Quality Classrooms

Ready Educators is a citywide effort to help Boston's early care and education programs move to the highest quality, using child outcomes to drive program improvement, andsupporting innovative models like Boston K1DS from design to implementation.

Boston K1DS: K1 Initiative for Diverse Students

• Demonstration project to evaluate the effectiveness of the Boston Public School’s community-based pre-K/K1 model

• Replicates 4 key elements of traditional BPS K1 classroom in a community-based preschool program

• Partnership established between BPS, Thrive in 5, MA Dept. of Early Education and Care, United Way and Barr Foundation to support project

• 14 CBO K1 classrooms launched in January 2013, primarily in low income neighborhoods of color in Boston

• Professional development

• Integrated curriculum (Opening the World of Learning and Building Blocks) and assessment

• Salary enhancement for classroom teacher

• Regular one-on-one coaching to transfer knowledge into practice

Boston K1DS Classrooms Receive:

School Readiness Pipeline: Healthy Child Development

Building a citywide, universal screening system to measure children’s development in their early years. Use data to inform resource allocation and investment and support parents/caregivers.

Data is collected using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire from three sources:

Parent Screeners

Trained parents who offer screening in the community to families not engaged in formal

early education programs

Play Group Screening

With the support of trained staff, parents complete screening during parent-child playgroup sessions

Early Education and Care

Programs Screening is part of

program’s intake and ongoing assessment

process

Big Data in Early Childhood

Next Phase of the Pipeline: Utilize Big Data and Business Analytics approaches to link ASQ screening data with other data sets and better understand healthy development of Boston’s youngest children

ASQScreenin

g Data

City and State Gov’t

Data

Pediatric Health

Provider Data

Census Data

Public Health Data

Early Intervention

Data

K-12 School Data

Higher Education

Data

Boston Children Thrive engages and empowers parents and builds community capacity to support children’s learning, healthy development and school readiness, starting at birth.

Boston Children Thrive:Parent Leadership and Community Capacity Building

Neighborhood Events and Field Trips

Business and Community Partnerships Parent-Child Play Groups

Parent Partners

Leadership Council: w/ membership from:

Mayor’s Office/City Departments, Parents/Communities, and

Private Sector Leaders

United Way of Massachusetts Bay and

Merrimack Valley

Mayor’s Office/City of Boston

Ready Educators

Advisory Group

Parent Advisory

Group

Executive Director

Director of Community

Based Strategies

School Readiness Pipeline

Coordinator

Director of Development & Communications

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

School Readiness Pipeline Learning

Collaborative

Community-Based

Strategies Group

Organizational Chart

Director Early Childhood Education

Strategies

Lessons Learned• Pursue novel strategies without being

in competition with direct service partners

• “Sustain the gains” though capacity building for individuals, organizations, and communities

• Use data to make the hard decisions

Allston/ Brighton

South End/ Lower

Roxbury

Dudley

Fields Corner

East Boston

RoxburyJamaica

Plain

Dorchester

MattapanRoslindale

Hyde Park

West Roxbury

Downtown

Charlestown

South BostonFenway

• Allston/Brighton – Family Nurturing Center

• Dudley – Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative

• East Boston – East Boston CPC Cluster

• Fields Corner – Dorchester House Multi Service Center

• South End/Lower Roxbury – United South End Settlements

Boston Children Thrive: Neighborhoods and Partners

Parent Leadership Pathway

BOSTON CHILDREN THRIVE PARENTS

PARENTS ON SCHOOL READINESS ROUNDTABLE

PARENT PARTNERS

PARENT LEADERSHIP EXCHANGE

Stipended peer-to-peer parent outreach

Parents who help plan, implement and evaluate neighborhood activities side-by-side with community organization partners

Parents enrolled in BCT and participating in BCT activities and events

Neighborhood-based teams of parents who identify, design and implement projects in their community – with ongoing support from peers and a leadership coach – that engage more families at all levels

PARENT LED PROJECT

Huong’s Story

“… the day one of Welcome Baby Program Home Visitors came to visit and give me some resources and programs supporting families in Dorchester …the door opening…to the whole new world. Since being involved with Fields Corner Children Thrive …, my 2 year-old baby girl has had great chances to develop her social and language skills (that … was … delayed) by going to FCCT events such as Saturday playgroup at Boys and Girls Club, Vietnamese Book Club, Zoo trip… And a half year ago, thanks to FCCT support, I started my first job in US as a Parent Screener and after 3 months, I got an opportunity to become a FCCT Parent Partner also.”

Build relationships with families

Support in-depth program evaluation

Membership knits neighborhood activities

and resources into a cohesive system to

support families

Data builds community capacity to support

school readiness through strategies that resonate with families

Families enroll in their neighborhood BCT

initiative and receive a BCT membership

card

Membership encourages families’

participation in activities that support

school readiness

Community partners scan membership card

at events and activities

Family demographic data shared with evaluators and

partners

Data shows BCT’s reach in the

community and depth of

relationships with individual families

Participation data shared with

evaluators and partners

ImpactOutcome

Membership Card System

Reaching the Target Population 3,059 BCT member families to dateOf enrolled adults:• 81% of color• 58% speak a language other than English • 61% born outside of the US• 51% have a high school diploma or less

Of enrolled families: • 70% receive one or more forms of public assistance,

including WIC, food stamps, etc.

Members are actively engaged:• 40% of families participated in at least one event

over the last year

“Before Thrive in 5 I lived in this community but I really didn’t do much of anything with my community. [BCT] has given me a broader sense of connection to my neighbors, my community, to the activities that are there for the children as well as activities that are there in the sense to help parents and the resources that are right next door to you that you didn’t even know were there.”

BCT Member Perspective

Lessons Learned• Start with the vision of the community • Include involvement from stakeholders• Lead from a place of service, love and authenticity• Parents need credibility to establish trust• Leverage trust by doing what you say you are

going to do• Balance relationships, results and process• By connecting families, you are building

community• Recognize, celebrate and build upon successes

World Café Dialogue: Facilitative Conversations that Matter

• Small group discussions

• Three questions • 1 host per table • Create a

“harvest” of ideas and insights from the group

World Café Discussion Questions

Based on your own experience and what you have learned in this

session….

What are some strategies you have used for "engaging families"

and/or "building community"?

World Café Discussion Questions

Based on your own experience and what you have learned in this

session….

What are some ways you have used data to inform policy and/or practice? To make decisions? To

measure outcomes or impact?

World Café Discussion Questions

Based on your own experience and what you have learned in this

session….

What would you say are the key components of developing and

sustaining a successful collective impact effort?

Learn more about Thrive in 5: www.thrivein5boston.org

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