The story of Connecticut?s use of results-based accountability to ensure better outcomes for young children. Features Rep. Diana Urban, Janice Gruendel, the governor?s senior policy advisor on early childhood, and David Nee, Executive Director of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund.
Thank you for taking a look at the opening introduction to the “Results Accountability Workshop DVD” presented by Mark Friedman. The DVD includes a guide to keep notes, participate in activities and receive the most out of the workshop at your pace. You can get a copy of the “Results Accountability DVD” at http://resultsleadership.org/purchase-rba-products/.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A group of leading nonprofit organizations has launched a new website that gives state and local policymakers valuable information about proven strategies to overcome a range of problems affecting American children, families and communities.
The site, PolicyForResults.org, offers innovative and effective approaches states and localities can take to help families increase their employment, acquire and retain assets (savings, homes and cars), and ensure that their children are reading well by third grade. For families in crisis, the site focuses on how more children can stay safely at home and not in foster care, and how to reduce the unnecessary and costly detention of juveniles in trouble with the law.
The website also provides up-to-date national data so that state officials and advocates can assess how their state is faring in vital areas such as child poverty rates, third and fourth grade reading achievement levels, and incidence of foster care and juvenile detention rates, when compared to national norms.
“This website will help governors, state legislators, mayors, county commissioners and other public officials make wiser investments to safeguard the future of their state’s children and families,” said Doug Nelson, president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
PolicyforResults.org is very user-friendly for any level of Professional?s knowledge on Results Framework. The ?About this Site Tab? in the upper-right hand side of the site outlines the tools for the Strategy?s Framework for simple understanding. Follow Policy for Results on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/policy4results for the latest updates.
It all began when Pam McCann was given the opportunity to attend a Results Based Accountability (RBA) workshop hosted by Family and Consumer Services (FACS). You see, Pam McCann just transferred from Child, Youth and Family Services to managing Family Works Hawkes Bay. Pam was determined to figure out a better way expressing what they were trying to achieve and what a difference they were making mainly to keep the funders informed in an organized manner. Pam was able to get the answers she was looking for from the highly interactive workshop.
"Information gives you a powerful tool to talk to funders, not necessarily about getting more money but to ensure the right services are there for your community."
Pam feels she now has a set of tools to better understand her clients and she believes that Results Based Accountability has a role to play for collaboration among other social services providers.
"Because this allows people to look at the bigger picture, they go beyond their own organization’s viewpoint to see their community’s needs more objectively."
Pam has taken the initiative to spead the benefits of Results Based Accountability and has co-presented a series of results-based workshops in Gisborne, Wairoa, Hastings, Napier, and Dannevirke which was organized by Family and Community Services.
Congratulations to Representative Diana Urban (CT) on her recent op-ed article on March 08, 2009 featured on TheDay.com headlining “Stability Requires Accountability“. Diana Urban paraphrases the economic situation in the article, “Americans seemed to expect that building an economy on a false foundation of speculation, borrowing and conspicuous consumption could go on forever.”
The real focus is Results Based Accountability being distinguished as a vision not a fad and more of a solution than a patch. The Co-Chairman of the Results Based Accountability Subcommittee adds, “RBA is about creating a shared vision for the future. A vision that identifies outcomes that have been deemed important. Outcomes like affordable health care for all Connecticut residents and access to quality jobs that pay a living wage.”
Diana Urban’s leadership in Connecticut continues to inspire collaboration and improved performance across the state. Congratulations once again to Diana’s article, as it conveys a solution not the patch of the financial crisis for state budgets accross the country.
The National Center for Children in Poverty’s Project THRIVE recently featured Results-based accountability as a “Short Take,” a publication that highlights issues and practices of interest to state maternal and child health leaders and their partners building State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS). Project THRIVE’s goal is ” to help states strengthen and expand their early childhood systems, paying particular attention to strategies that improve services for those at highest risk and that help reduce disparities in access and quality of care to early childhood health and mental health.”
In Short Take No. 7, “State Indicators for Early Childhood,” Kay Johnson, Leslie Davidson, Suzanne Theberge, and Jane Knitzer outline how RBA can be used to develop indicators of child and family well-being, an approach already in use by several communities, states, and federal agencies. The paper recommends that each state ECCS initiative move toward greater use of RBA to develop indicators to enhance data collection and their ability to work with data.
Read the entire paper and its excellent explanation of how to implement RBA on the NCCP’s Web site.
As policy makers and community members in Montgomery County, Maryland, consider, “How will we sustain our quality of life for future generations — and how do we measure our progress”, they are turning to results-based accountability for answers.
The Healthy and Sustainable Communities Project, launched this spring, was established to develop overall environmental policy goals and indicators to measure the county’s progress in achieving those goals. Featuring the use of the Results-based Accountability model and in partnership with the folks here at Results Leadership Group, the project illustrates a dynamic means of garnering community and expert input to establish a list of goals and indicators that policy makers will use to make decisions on county spending and programs that lead to increased sustainability.
Check it out!
Advocating Results Accountability for budget processes across in towns across Connecticut, state Rep. Diana Urban compared the methodology with the successful course for an ocean-going ship.
“Start by choosing a destination, plot the course and use the plan as a reference while navigating in the unpredictable sea. If the ship moves off-course, change the plans to keep moving toward that original endpoint. With a clear end on the forefront of all actions, it’s easier to pinpoint where things go awry,” the article said, summarizing an interview with Rep. Urban.
Rep. Urban, who heads up the award-winning Results-based Accountability subcommittee of the legislature’s Appropriations Committee, has suggested the town of North Stonington implement the RA strategy in its budget-making process and set an example for the state of Connecticut.
Read the full article in “The Day” here.