“Solution Plans” for Promise Neighborhoods: Embedding Evidence Based Practices into Comprehensive Community Initiatives

Introduction:

Since 2010 the Department of Education has funded 58 Promise Neighborhoods, or collaborations of organizations that serve a neighborhood or “zone,” with the goal of building family and community support systems that prepare students for college/careers. The Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), based in North Minneapolis, MN, is a federally funded Promise Neighborhood that is developing and implementing solutions to address the myriad of risk, protective and promotive factors experienced by children and their families across all stages of development. NAZ solutions include communication, collaboration, and resource-sharing among their more than 60 community based partners, all focused on the goal of ending multi-generational poverty using education as a lever. To do this, NAZ has partnered with a team from the University of Minnesota to embed standards of excellence across the continuum of solutions, and evaluate the effect on program outcomes, in a process called the Seal of Effectiveness.

Methods: 

The NAZ Seal of Effectiveness is a continuous improvement process that ensures all services and supports within the NAZ Continuum feature elements of known, effective practice, and that these services and supports systematically improve as NAZ grows. Researchers from the University of Minnesota are facilitating the program development and internal, formative evaluation components of the Seal of Effectiveness. This process proceeds systematically as follows:

1. A program Solution Plan is developed to describe program practices that will be implemented to achieve Solution Area Goals, as informed by a combination of the empirical literature, current best-practice, and federal Promise Neighborhood Institute technical assistance.

2. A Peer Review is completed, with national experts in related fields determining the degree to which a Solution Plan incorporates current knowledge on evidence-based practices that will likely result in achievement of the stated goal. Results of this review are incorporated into the original Solution Plan.

3. NAZ adopts and implements the Solution Plan as a Promising Practice.

4. A formative evaluation is conducted examining the degree to which a Solution Plan is being implemented with fidelity and at the intended scale, and the resulting short term impact on children’s skill growth.

5. This formative evaluation data is shared with NAZ to inform areas of ongoing program improvement.

Results: The Out of School Time (OST) Action Area is the first solution within the NAZ continuum to complete the Seal of Effectiveness process. We will use the OST area to demonstrate the Seal of Effectiveness model and share lessons learned.