Lessons Learned from “Making Data Actionable in Child Maltreatment Prevention: A Toolkit for Collective Impact”
The Colorado Partnership for Thriving Families’ first learning collaborative, Making Data Actionable in Child Maltreatment Prevention: A Toolkit for Collective Impact was a big success! Thank you to all who joined and helped make this kick-off event meaningful and actionable. For those unable to attend live or who want to revisit the rich information discussed, here is a copy of the recording and the slidedeck.
As we look towards the future of collective impact for family well-being and child maltreatment prevention, we are amplifying some themes from our first learning collaborative:
- Collective Impact requires cross-system partnerships. Participants represented a variety of sectors at state and local levels, from public health to human services to providers and families.
- Collective Impact starts with a shared vision. Participants brought so much passion and elevated their “Why” of engagement: collaboration across systems and with communities is vital to equitable success and building protective factors for families.
- Collective Impact requires a systems change mindset. Only when we begin to see the full system of the conditions and factors that impact family well-being will we be able to make meaningful and measurable change. Participants worked through systems-level thinking and inspired new ways for making movement forward.
- Collective Impact happens through mutually reinforcing activities. Innovative and longstanding prevention work is already happening across Colorado. Participants elevated their good work, from local Child Maltreatment Prevention Plans to resource collaborations to building community leader power and service navigation support.
- Collective Impact is assessed through a shared measurement system. Understanding what works and for whom means selecting outcome indicators that can be shared across systems, to assess progress and strengthen our mutually reinforcing activities. Participants began to build out a shared measurement system that partners can use during systems change work.
Where we go from here: This learning collaborative was an inspiring start to building our shared capacity for collective impact and actionable data in child maltreatment prevention and family well-being. And it was exactly that – a start. The Partnership, Illuminate Colorado, and the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab are designing concrete ways to best meet the support needs attendees identified as part of moving forward, together.
If you or your organization is interested in receiving direct support in using the Toolkit, please contact: Courtney L. Everson, PhD, Sr. Researcher/Project Director, Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab, Courtney@ColoradoLab.org.
To learn more about the Partnership and how to get involved, please contact Krishna Dahya, Foster America Fellow, Colorado Partnership for Thriving Families, kdahya@illuminatecolorado.org.