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The Policymaker's Program
The First Five Years
Volume I
Why aren't our children learning more? How do we explain the increase in reported abuse of very young children? Why are so many young people in trouble in so many different ways - experimenting with drugs and alcohol, performing poorly in school, dropping out, becoming parents when scarcely more than children themselves, or running afoul of the juvenile justice system? Why is it that, along with their morning coffee, Americans so frequently have to absorb newspaper accounts of tragic failures to protect children and families by the very public agencies created to protect them? And, why is it that the more policy we develop about these problems, and the more money we spend, the harder it is to see success?
A big part of the answer to these questions is that many American families are in trouble. They are in trouble everywhere, and in the inner-city, they are in crisis.
Another part of the answer is less obvious but equally significant. Over the years, well-intentioned state policymakers - governors, legislators, and agency officials - have created so many different programs to meet the needs of children and families that the service delivery system itself is in trouble. It has become so fragmented and diffuse, cumbersome and inefficient, that it's hard to make it work and it often fails to meet the needs for which it was designed.
Working with a blue-ribbon advisory board, the Danforth Foundation, in cooperation with the Education Commission of the States, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Governors' Association, has created a careful balance of "top-down" support for "bottom-up" reform to address these challenges. The Policymakers' Program is designed to help state and local leaders create a vision for children and families - and to define a process for achieving their vision that respects the unique traditions of each state and its communities. As a ten-year initiative, launched in 1992, the Policymakers' Program will end in 2002.
At the heart of the Policymakers' Program is a new way of thinking about how states and communities can best provide services. This new way of thinking emphasizes customers instead of clients, results as opposed to resources, prevention in place of correction, decentralization and deregulation instead of control and compliance, and collaboration and coordination in place of turf-protection and buck-passing. Above all, it insists that the family is the customer, not solely the child or an individual parent. And it seeks large-scale institutional change in how government operates rather than isolated demonstration projects designed to provide protective cover for on-going failure. This new way of thinking is not for the faint of heart.
Now in its sixth year, the Policymakers' Program has helped more than 300 legislators, agency heads, and governors and their advisors from some 40 states rethink human service organization and delivery in their communities. From those 40 states, the program selected 15 state teams (ranging in size from 12 to 27 people) and helped them develop comprehensive and coordinated community action plans tailored to their specific needs.
This approach has required a broad vision, included many participants, and developed new and important collaborations - new arrangements between state agencies, municipal and county governments, frontline service providers, and families. The program that is described in this report is based not only on good research but also on the reflections and experiences of friends and colleagues with years of experience in service design and delivery. Whether active in government - as executive staff, legislators, agency heads, superintendents, teachers, or social workers or community consumers of state and local services, these colleagues fully understand the "Catch-22" nature of government organization and the frustrating variety of ambiguities and complexities accompanying service delivery.
This two-volume report describes the origins and development of the Policymakers' Program in its first six years. Volume I explains why and how the Policymakers' Program was created. It also describes how the program operates and includes brief overviews of state action plans - descriptions of how states and communities organized themselves and what they accomplished. It addresses how individual states and communities have benefited from the program. Finally, it draws some lessons from the history of the effort in the hope they may prove useful to philanthropic groups, state leaders, and others interested in supporting comprehensive community efforts to improve services for children and families. This volume is rounded out with five appendices describing the highlights of the program's introductory meetings in each of the first five years.
The companion Volume II provides detailed information on how the program was implemented, accompanied by tools for those who might want to replicate it, including letters inviting participation, meeting agendas, and a variety of frameworks related to large-scale institutional change.
In closing, I want to stress the significance of the "Lessons Learned" section in Volume I. The lessons include how the Foundation and its partners learned to work collaboratively with each other; ways to translate state policy into practice; how to develop and sustain collaborations across legislative committees and between agencies of government; and what must be considered when trying to bring a model program to scale.
Our experience with the Policymakers' Program demonstrates that states and communities are rich in resources, ideas, and goodwill. There is no shortage here. There is a commitment to addressing our most urgent domestic problems in new ways, especially through productive collaborations that involve the sharing of resources and joint accountability for results.
To the extent there is a shortage, it can be found in the sparsity of models showing how to transform these good intentions into reality. The Policymakers' Program helps fill this gap. It set out to engage policymakers in the difficult task of improving the life chances for vulnerable children. It did so by helping policymakers create sound programs to support families so that their children can succeed in school and life. In that spirit, this report is dedicated to helping policymakers transform their ideas and goodwill into effective programs to improve results for children and families.
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Robert H. Koff
Vice President
The Danforth Foundation |
Access the PDF documents for Volume I.
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