POLICY AND PRACTICE Evidence2Success
to improve the wellbeing of children from low-income communities in a city through evidence-based programmes, beginning in two communitites before expanding citywide. The project targets improvements across fi ve critical areas of children’s health and development: education and skills attainment, behaviour, positive relationships, emotional wellbeing, and physical health. Evidence2Success also examines root causes that affect child wellbeing, and the infl uences on their lives. These infl uences include children’s families, community norms and expectations, and schools. Many children growing up in deprived communities are also infl uenced by public agencies, which often support families’ basic needs or, in child welfare or juvenile offending cases, take on a parental role in the child’s life. Evidence2Success unites all of these infl uences, to develop a shared vision for their health and development.
Building on what works: Improving children’s futures
Improving children’s health and development requires strong partnerships, sustainable fi nancing, and the ability to match children’s needs to proven programmes, says Jessica Ripper and Abel Ortiz
RESEARCH HAS IDENTIFIED A NUMBER of critical milestones that predict success in school. For example, children who enter school ready to learn, have a strong attendance record, and are profi cient readers by age 8 are more likely to do well. However, academic success also depends on a child’s
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ability to reach non-academic milestones, such as regulating their behaviour and interacting positively with their peers. Evidence2Success: Improving Our
Children’s Futures is a new project developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and several partners, in the US. It aims
Better: Evidence-based Education winter 2012
A new opportunity for schools Why should schools engage in Evidence2Success? The majority of children aged 5 to 16 are expected to attend school, regardless of what is happening in other areas of their lives. As a result, teachers and administrators are pressured to take on non-academic responsibilities that can have a negative impact on pupils’ school performance, as these responsibilities often take time away from classroom teaching. Evidence2Success brings together teachers and administrators in partnerships with parents, the community, and public agencies to address non-academic challenges. By combining schools’ administrative data with information collected from children and their parents, the partnerships can examine both the academic and non-academic infl uences on children’s behaviour. Evidence2Success engages schools in offering evidence-based programmes, such as bullying prevention and life skills programmes, to remediate non-academic challenges. In addition, it offers evidence- based education and skills attainment programmes such as Reading Recovery and Success for All.
How Evidence2Success works Evidence2Success employs four basic strategies that, when used in combination, have the potential to produce greater benefi ts for children’s health and development. The Foundation and its partners selected these strategies based on decades of research and experience in public health, community engagement, and change management within public agencies and schools.
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