B R I D G E S S U M M I T C O U N T Y C O L L A B O R A T I V E

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1 B R I D G E S S U M M I T C O U N T Y C O L L A B O R A T I V E January-September 2014 Stakeholders Report Bridges is an initiative in Summit County that believes poverty can be eliminated if all economic classes come together to create relationships, build resources, improve outcomes, and support people moving out of poverty. In Summit County, this work is being accomplished with the help of 40 different organizations working together to help employers, community organizations, social-service agencies, and individuals address poverty in a comprehensive way. With the support of United Way of Summit County serving as fiscal sponsor and backbone support for the collaborative, this initiative works toward individual, institutional and community change in Summit County. BSC and COLLECTIVE IMPACT Breaking the cycle of generational poverty through the collective work of individual, institutional and community partners requires a structured approach to a large-scale challenge. BSC is committed to addressing poverty in our community through Collective Impact. Five key conditions distinguish collective impact from other types of collaboration: a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and the presence of a backbone organization. These five conditions offer a more powerful and realistic paradigm for social progress than the prevailing model of isolated impact in which countless nonprofit, business, and government organizations each work to address social problems independently. The complex nature of most social problems belies the idea that any single program or organization, however well managed and funded, singlehandedly can create lasting large-scale change. (Stanford Social Innovation Review; Channeling Change: Making Collective Impact Work; BRIDGES SUMMIT COUNTY COLLABORATIVE and STRUCTURE The collaboration continued to evolve in The BSC Advisory Council is tasked with leadership of effort, coordination of goals, communication of the overall initiative, and to be a decision-making body for financial and human resource decisions. The Advisory Council recently amended the BSC mission statement to read: Bridges Summit County is committed to breaking the cycle of generational poverty through the collective work of individual, institutional and community partners. During 2014, the Council formed Divide and Conquer (DAC) Teams to activate leadership of effort. Teams meet to focus on major areas of responsibility such as Getting Ahead, Research and Evaluation, Pathways Forward, and Operations. A Special Projects Team forms as needed to address small to medium-sized issues. 1 P a g e

2 Leadership of effort was also demonstrated in Project Learn of Summit County s agreement to serve as the coordinating agency for day-to-day operation of Getting Ahead. Jackie Phillips (Project Learn Multi-Level Classroom Instructor) now also serves as the Getting Ahead Coordinator for BSC. Coordination of Getting Ahead is now team-based, with several individuals (including an AmeriCorps VISTA) helping the effort. A new BSC website was designed by Alissa McKenzie, Interactive Specialist at Summa Health System. Under the oversight of Cory St. Esprit the website continues to become an increasingly attractive, interactive and valuable resource for all Bridges constituencies, including trainers, council members, Getting Ahead graduates and facilitators, and general public. BSC was awarded a grant from the Corporation for Community and National Service for seven AmeriCorps VISTAs to serve one-year terms in organizations addressing poverty in Summit County. Two VISTAs work directly with BSC, significantly building our capacity. United Way remains fiscal sponsor, grant writer and general backbone support. BRIDGES WORKSHOPS Bridges workshop is a training designed for middle class and wealthy professionals to better understand poverty. Many who interact with or serve low income families through employment, service delivery or volunteering do not understand the hidden rules and barriers that govern the life of the poor. Through these workshops, professionals come to view poverty through a new lens. This sensitivity contributes to the community change that is needed to truly affect poverty. Between January and the end of August 2014, BSC staff facilitated 12 workshops (at least 3 hours) for a total of 442 attendees. Notably, one workshop, with the endorsement of County Executive Russ Pry, invited community leaders (business, government and non-profit) to explore the same concepts that many of their front-line staff were being sensitized to through organizational or public workshops. Over 4,000 individuals have attended a workshop since the collaborative formed Full Day Attendees 1/24 Project Learn Board Members 18 1/28 CSB 18 2/12 Job Center Public 55 3/5 Summit County Community Leaders 60 3/8 Project Learn Staff 43 4/9 Job Center Public 65 4/22 Project Learn Volunteers 13 4/29 Jobs for Ohio Graduates 15 5/16 Locust Pediatrics 27 6/11 Job Center - Public 51 7/8 HM Life Opportunity Services 12 8/13 Red Cross - Public Total P a g e

3 8 Bridges Out of Poverty talks ( minutes) were also conducted throughout the community, sharing the philosophy of Bridges with 300 individuals Organization People Time (min) 1/10 Catholic Charities /25 Poverty Simulation /13 Neighborhood Leadership Institute /14 Committee for Research on Women and Gender (CROW) Conference /27 HM Life Opportunities 60 4/3 Highland Square Town Hall Mtg /3 HM Life Opportunities 60 8/20 Fairlawn Rotary TOTAL 300 CEU s for social workers, counselors and marriage and family therapists and CLE s for legal professionals may be earned for participation in the full-day Bridges Workshops. BSC continues to utilize the quantitative assessments for Bridges workshops created by Summit Education Initiative (SEI). BRIDGES CERTIFIED TRAINERS Bridges workshops can also be tools to change the lens through which an organization s staff views its low-income clients, customers and employees; policies and practices; forms of communication; and its entire method of organizational self-assessment. To increase the number of certified Bridges Out of Poverty trainers within organizations which provide on-going internal workshops for staff, board, volunteers, etc., BSC hosted a local certification training in May 2014 with aha!process s trainers, Phil DeVol, Jodi Pfarr and Terie Dreussi Smith. 54 individuals from 27 organizations were trained, increasing the number of local trainers to 75. The training was sponsored by Akron Children s Hospital, Tri-County Regional Labor Council AFL-CIO and Summit 2020: A Quality of Life Project. Bridges Certified Trainers meet quarterly to keep all Bridges trainers engaged, connected and informed; create a community of learning; and to support shared and consistent messaging. A Trainer s Toolkit was created by Cory St. Esprit (UWSC) for the BSC website to allow trainers the opportunity to submit workshop data and feedback, utilize BSC workshop materials, share ideas, best practices and impact stories, and participate in discussion groups 3 P a g e

4 ORGANIZATIONS ON PATH TO CHANGE BSC recognizes the need for changes in individual staff understandings and attitudes related to poverty, but also for changes at the organizational level (culture, policies, practices, etc.). BSC encourages institutions to commit to full participation and change to become a true Bridges organization. In 2013/2014, BSC contracted with Summit Education Initiative (SEI) to develop an organizational rubric to assess six (6) key areas related to Bridges-like constructs: Access Flexibility Retention Promotion and Mutual Respect Communication Commitment and Leadership Additionally, BSC contracted with SEI to develop a data and evaluation system for organizations making a two-year commitment to internal change based on these 6 areas. The system is built to capture longitudinal change (behaviors, policies, etc.) from the time a staff member, volunteer, board member, etc. participates in their first Bridges training through the next two years. The system captures individual data (all electronically). Organizational leaders will have the capacity to extract data and reports to gauge organizational changes over time. Plans are being laid for significant numbers of staff to be trained in Summit County. Akron Children s Hospital, The County of Summit and Akron Public Schools are each making multi-year plans to train all staff members. Locusts Pediatric Care Group at Akron Children s Hospital held a full day workshop for its 27 staff members; training was for the benefit of the practice as well as the first inroad to training Akron Children s Hospital s 5,000 Akron employees. Akron Public Schools plans to train all 3,500 staff within the next three years. The County of Summit designated an internal Bridges coordinator to oversee the training of all 3,000 County employees. GETTING AHEAD Getting Ahead is a facilitated curriculum designed for those in poverty who are motivated and ready to make changes. Each individual in the group is called an investigator. He/she will investigate root causes of poverty, how it affects their community, and how to build personal resources to overcome poverty. Each investigator will make a plan for moving from poverty to self-sufficiency, including specific goals they would like to achieve. The standard class works together for 16 sessions. From January to August 2014, BSC Getting Ahead sites collectively graduated 164 individuals. The number of Getting Ahead sites increased from 5 to 7 with the inclusion of Project Learn and HM Life Opportunity Services. These organizations reflect BSC s goal to secure host organizations that provide more holistic programming for the investigator. Ohio Means Jobs Center completed an initial partial-year Getting Ahead contract in October 2013 with 67 graduating in six (6) classes. From October 2013 to October 2014, OMJC will have graduated 97. We are entering into the second full contract year with DJFS in October P a g e

5 The new contract includes enhanced modules: Parenting & Interpersonal Relationships, Drugs & Alcohol, and Self-Assessment & Development. Classes increase to 22 sessions over 11 weeks. An enhanced version of Getting Ahead was piloted (began January 2014) at OPEN M. The standard GA course was enhanced with several additional components including personal exploration, parenting, financial literacy, education, and health. Project Learn and BSC piloted the integration of Getting Ahead into the Project Learn curriculum with the assistance of Kyle Putinski, BSC Co-Lead Facilitator at the Ohio Means Jobs Center. This integration might serve as a national model where people without GEDs can investigate poverty while gaining literacy skills. BSC VISTA Mary Ann Mills is developing pathways forward for Getting Ahead investigators and graduates starting with the re-creation of monthly meetings (now called Community Connectors Meetings) and a BSC Speakers Bureau. Each will allow Getting Ahead graduates to continue building personal resources and skills and share impact stories. Smile Minded SmartWorks (Tina Ughrin) has contracted with BSC to provide qualitative and quantitative assessments for Getting Ahead. The assessments and analyses facilitated by the Summit County Public Health Department established a strong foundation. Focus groups, stakeholder and participant interviews, and additional data built upon that foundation with the construction of three interim instruments that provided assessment of Getting Ahead participants at Entry, Exit, and at 6-month followup intervals. Data from all of the above sources has been used to construct new quantitative instruments that are presently being rolled-out to participating agencies. AMERICORPS VISTA SERVICE Top Row (left to right): Mary Ann Mills (BSC), Yaminah Martin (BSC), Rebecca Byrne (AMHA), Shakita Van Liew (SEI), Bottom Row (left to right): Chalanda Hale (SCRN), Melinda Brandt (Project Learn), and Deatra Hunt (AMHA). 5 P a g e

6 2014 Bridges Summit County Advisory Council Dottie Achmoody Nichole Booker Montoya Boykin Donae Ceja Matt Deevers Doug Denton Robert Dowdell Leonard Foster Latoya Harris Christina Hodgkinson Ramona Hood Christine Marshall Yaminah Martin Rick McIntosh Yvette McMillan Mary Ann Mills Darlene Mims Jill Oldham Sue Pierson Sandy Selby Carla Sibley Donna Skoda Cory St. Esprit Lori Stokes Tina Ughrin Maureen Van Duser Janda Wallace Jeff Wilhite Deniela Williams OPEN M United Way of Summit County Getting Ahead Facilitator United Way of Summit County Summit Education Initiative United Methodist Church of Kent Akron Summit Community Action/Circles County of Summit Summit County Department of Job and Family Services Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority Fed Ex Custom Critical Summit County Department of Job and Family Services Bridges Summit County/VISTA Co-Leader Project Learn of Summit County Harvest Home Bridges Summit County/VISTA Co-Leader (Advisory Council Co-Chair) Summit County Department of Jobs and Family Services Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank InfoLine, Inc. Furnace Street Mission (Advisory Council Chair) Akron Public Schools Summit County Public Health United Way of Summit County METRO Regional Transit Authority Smile Minded SmartWorks, LLC Community Volunteer Akron Summit Community Action Family Promise of Summit County Summit County Department of Job and Family Services BSC Divide and Conquer (DAC) Teams Getting Ahead Certified Trainers Research & Evaluation Pathways Forward Operations Special Projects 6 P a g e