Family Connection Partnership News

FCP Celebrates 2002 with Collaborative Successes

Family Connection Partnership closes the calendar year with many achievements in taking our work to the next level in areas of collaboration and results accountability. We have accomplished many of the tasks listed in our Two-Year Operational Plan and are working at a fast, yet strategic pace to implement others.

The following items highlight some of the work that we have done under the four strategic goals of the plan.

Supporting Communities

• Designed three Learning Institutes in the areas of evaluation, community engagement, and collaborative development. Each was delivered in six sites statewide.
  
  
• Provided 229 technical assistance visits in communities since January 2002.
  
  
• Delivered training sessions in collaboration to 80 school systems receiving Georgia READS grants, at the request of the Georgia Department of Education.
  
  
• Held meetings with county collaboratives to gather information on how to better support communities in their work. Resulted in developing creative ways to expand our technical assistance and training.

Linking State and Community Priorities

• Partnered with Georgians for Children in writing the 2002 Kids Count book.
  
  
• Piloted an Earned Income Tax Credit campaign for working families in three rural counties as a tool for family economic self-sufficiency.
  
  
• Received a federal grant to enhance current community efforts in four southwest Georgia counties to link, coordinate and provide services to support early childhood development, increase parent effectiveness in rearing young children, and promote learning readiness and development.
  
  
• Provided technical assistance and support to nine counties implementing the Community Partnerships for Protecting Children child welfare reform initiative with the Department of Children and Family Services.
  
  
• Organized training and awarded a three-year grant to an eight-county consortium that demonstrated effectiveness in collaboration around juvenile justice.
  
  
• Provided support to the Governor's Action Group for Safe Children, resulting in a series of recommendations, including the value of local collaboratives.
  
  
• Presented at all regional meetings of the Office of School Readiness.
  
  
• Organized meetings of agencies working in family support to continue discussion of mutual training.
  
  
• Partnered with other organizations to begin planning for a community-oriented summit around responsible fatherhood and healthy family formation. Currently refining a responsible fatherhood model with a focus on improving child well-being to be piloted in several communities statewide.
  
  
• Presented the Family Connection Results Accountability framework at the International Initiative meeting in Windsor, England. (Georgia is considered a model for replication in other states and countries.)

Promoting Results

• Redesigned our Web site, adding new community tools, and launched a new electronic magazine.
  
  
• Wrote and distributed two briefing papers on early learning and local decision-making.
  
  
• Partnered with Georgia State University and Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention to develop a formula for determining the cost of prevention in savings to the state.
  
  
• Conducted information technology (IT) surveys of county collaboratives' technological capacity and began development of an IT plan supportive of collaboratives' needs.
  
  
• Held six evaluation workshops assisting county collaboratives in strategy evaluation.
  
  
• Conducted a statewide Public Affairs tour, visiting Family Connection regions, to promote ongoing work of the collaboratives and the Partnership.
  
  
• Began planning for the 2003 Family Connection Winter Training and Family Connection Day, and the 2003 Family Connection Conference.

Promoting Fiscal Accountability

• Successfully completed an annual audit process.
  
  
• Developed and implemented fund development protocol and process.
  
  
• Drafted proposals for national foundations related to evaluation and collaborative development.
  
  
• Established a Community-Building Committee to continue to build a new organizational culture and structure to support the Operational Plan.
  
  
• Implemented a process evaluation of the Operational Plan to demonstrate progress and deliverables.