Report released on the ‘transformative qualities’ of our initiative

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation recently commissioned a report to document the status of Foundations for Success midway through the foundation’s five-year investment in our initiative.

The report was completed by Margaret J. Walker, Ph.D.

During her study, Marg interviewed 24 professionals and 7 parents about their experiences with Foundations for Success. Marg concluded that Foundations for Success is following five strategies that make it a transformative initiative:

• We have strong guiding principles.
• The new services we create fit complement the larger system and our community.
• Our efforts are grounded in research-based knowledge and continuous learning.
• We strive to create and cultivate relationships with key partners.
• We have included sustainability in everything we do.

In addition, Marg collected some great quotes from people familiar with Foundations for Success. A few sample quotes are:

• “The whole intent behind the program is building a relationship with your kids. Turning you into the kind of person your kids want to listen to, and turning your kids into kids that you would want to interact with a lot.”
  

  - Laura, mother of Carmen

• “We have this big push about getting kids ready for school through literacy. But if children don’t have the social and emotional skills, if they can’t self-regulate, and attend and compose themselves, they’re not going to be able to learn their ABC’s or write their names, or anything else they’re expected to do in a large group setting.”
  

  - Carol Stromme, Resources for Child Caring

• “The true systems change is that now the infrastructure exists where it didn’t before. That’s huge. The value added speaks for itself. If this money goes away, the people in the system are going to look at that gap and say, Hey, we can’t afford to let this go.”
  

  - Mary Sue Hansen, Suburban Ramsey Family Collaborative

• “Something that hit me this week is that (with Foundations for Success) we have at least one place in the state where we can point to a model of integrated services for early childhood that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the state–and very few places around the country, really.”
  

  - Glenace Edwall, Children’s Mental Health, MN Department of Human Services

Read the entire report here: