Investing In Innovation (Family Economies & Early Childhood, Annie E. Casey Foundation)

CHILDREN GROW UP in the context of their families and communities. Yet services for children in low-income families often overlook the financial, emotional and practical struggles of their parents — factors that directly affect children’s well-being. L ike a growing number of funders over the past decade, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has been investing in approaches that create opportunities for whole families together, build knowledge about how to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and inform thinking about an investment strategy focused on rapid learning and prototyping. As part of this effort, the Foundation set out to test a hypothesis: Children would grow up with brighter futures in more stable families with integrated services that help parents increase earnings and manage finances while providing high-quality learning for their young children — helping parents reduce stress and become advocates for their needs. To test this concept of integrated two-generation services, the Foundation invested in four pilots known as Family Economic Success — Early Childhood Education (FES-ECE). At the same time, the Foundation invested in a developmental evaluation. The Foundation began this work in 2009, building on research and the past experiences of early two-generation approaches. Research on early childhood development, family economics and family well-being informed the Foundation’s approach to FES-ECE. The framework was purposely flexible to see how community- based organizations would put the three pillars of family economic success, parent engagement and capacity building and high-quality early childhood care and education into practice. Funding supported time for learning, framing the approach, site selection, implementation, evaluation and capacity building in the field. Program funding began in 2013 and the evaluation examined the experience of the sites from 2014–16. The sites continue their work in the two-generation field today. The FES-ECE investment yielded promising early results and strengthened sites that continue to influence practice and policy. But the Foundation learned it had underestimated what it would take for sites to be ready to integrate services in terms of culture, data, staffing and other key aspects of their work, and that entering the annie e. casey foundation/www.aecf.org / 1 with such a flexible framework ultimately kept the Foundation from being able to measure consistent family outcomes across sites during the period of the FES-ECE investment. This brief, therefore, wrestles with a central tension that it cannot completely resolve. In many ways, FES-ECE is providing an enduring contribution about technical assistance, data infrastructure and lessons about staffing and culture that continues to pay dividends Lessons From the FES-ECE Pilots for the programs involved and the larger field. On the other hand, the flexible approach that led to those insights made it difficult not only to document lasting change for families, but also to discern even in hindsight exactly what length of time, amount of money and type of initiative design would have produced that change. FES-ECE has strengthened Casey’s belief in the promise of two-generation approaches to build a brighter future for children and their families, and the Foundation continues to invest in two-generation programs, research and policy and data development on a broad scale. In that spirit, this brief shares reflections from the FES-ECE journey in the hope that other funders will build on the lessons the Foundation learned in its early work. While investing in two populations for holistic gains carries special complications and risks, the potential rewards are great and worth deliberate pursuit. ARE DOCUMENTED IN A VARIETY OF PRODUCTS, INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING: An Evaluation of Family Economic Success — Early Childhood Education: Findings from a Two-Generation Approach Demonstration. James Bell Associates (Brief to be published in 2018 at www.aecf.org.) Advancing Two-Generation Approaches: Developing an Infrastructure to Address Parent and Child Needs Together. The Annie E. Casey Foundation Advancing Two-Generation Approaches: Integrating Data to Support Families. The Annie E. Casey Foundation Strengthening the Foundation: Strategic Evidence Building for Two-Generation Approaches. The Annie E. Casey Foundation Engaging Parents, Developing Leaders: A Self-Assessment and Planning Tool for Nonprofits and Schools. The Annie E. Casey Foundation Advancing Two-Generation Approaches: Funding to Help Families Succeed. The Annie E. Casey Foundation For more information on Casey’s two-generation investments and evaluation, contact Rosa Maria Castaneda or T’Pring Westbrook at webmail@aecf.org.