Partnership for Children, Youth and Families (The Partnership)

Collective Impact Building Communities of Hope

Background

The Partnership for Children, Youth and Families (the Partnership) regularly assesses, funds and builds community partnerships to address the needs of children and families in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. As one of Maryland’s 24 Local Management Boards, the Partnership plays a key role in advancing statewide priorities set by the Governor’s Office for Children by bringing vital human services to families impacted by incarceration, hungry children, youth experiencing homelessness and disconnected youth.

Based on community-wide needs assessments, the Partnership develops a Community Plan every 2-3 years that serves as a call to action for residents, youth, and leaders from civic, faith, business, philanthropic, nonprofit, and government sectors throughout Anne Arundel County. It prioritizes specific areas of the county, called Communities of Hope, with high levels of unmet needs and racial disparities. The Community of Hope model was created by Casey Family Programs to prevent the need for foster care by supporting families in raising safe, happy and healthy children.

The County’s first Community of Hope was created in 2016 in Brooklyn Park to address poverty, a lack of resources, and growing needs among underserved populations.

The Process

Due East has worked with the Partnership since 2015 to engage communities in designing, driving and sustaining population-level change. In supporting the Partnership most recently to develop its FY20-FY22 Community Plan, Due East knit together three frameworks to stoke and sustain change:

  • Collective Impact for systemic change (John Kania and Mark Kramer)
  • Results-Based Accountability for population-level change (Mark Friedman)
  • 5 Drivers of Growth & Sustainability for organizational change   (Due East Partners)

With Due East’s guidance and support, the Partnership convened hundreds of community leaders, service providers and county residents, including people directly impacted by the issues revealed in the needs assessment, to discuss the data and create a new Community Plan for Children, Youth and Families.

The Results

  • The Partnership added three new Communities of Hope in its FY20-FY22 plan: Annapolis, South County, and West County (Meade/Severn). The plan also outlined initial goals, partners, and resources for the work to come in those communities.
  • Progress on key indicators of child and family well-being is tracked annually through a Scorecard.
  • Poverty, a lagging indicator that is often hard to move, dropped in Brooklyn Park nearly 4% between 2015 and 2019.
  • The Partnership was able to quickly respond to many hardships exacerbated by COVID-19 and bring food and life-saving resources to children and families throughout the county.

“Due East was a masterful partner in strategizing and planning each constituent meeting. Paying attention to the roles of board members, staff and community leaders contribute to our success.”

Alli Holstrom

Compliance Director, Anne Arundel County Partnership for Children Youth & Families

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