PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Aroostook County Action Program is one of only 10 agencies nationally, and the only one in the northeast, to be selected by the Administration for Children and Families to participate in a learning community designed to help those adopting the two-generation/whole family approach improve their program evaluation and continue building the evidence base for fully integrated, intentional models for two-generation service delivery.
ACAP has worked during the past four years to integrate the two-generation/whole family approach agency-wide, and has become nationally recognized as a leading model asked to mentor other non profit organizations in the cultural and organizational transformations that are key components to moving the work forward.
“The work of the ACAP team to adopt and implement what we refer to as the whole family approach and the complementary comprehensive service delivery model is making a difference in the lives of people across Aroostook County each day,” said Jason Parent, ACAP executive director/CEO.
“We are not only helping connect families and individuals to much needed services, but helping young children succeed in being school ready and parents connected with education and employment opportunities to improve their household’s economic and overall wellbeing,” Parent said.
Two-generation or whole family initiatives intentionally combine economic security services for parents with accessible, high quality early care and education for children and hold promise for improving family well being. The approach is based on an understanding that low-income families face significant challenges as they attempt to navigate education and employment while finding quality early care and education that supports children’s development and meets families’ needs.
The effort to bring together 10 leading two-generation practicing agencies is being led by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families as they continue to develop the next steps for research on two-generation approaches. The Administration for Children and Families is a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
The ten agencies selected to participate will meet periodically over the coming months and years to work on activities related to building Two-Generation program evaluation capacity. The work of the learning community, and the more intensive formative evaluation work to be conducted with four two-generation initiatives, will be compiled into a report that will summarize project activities, share lessons learned, and offer possible next steps to advance the field of two-generation programming.
“It is an honor that the outstanding and transformative work of our hardworking and dedicated team County-wide is recognized nationally in this way, and that what we do moving forward to better evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts will not only assist us, but have implications nationally,” Parent said.
In addition to ACAP, the other agencies selected to participate in the learning community are: Brighton Center in Newport, Kentucky; Briya Public Charter School in Washington, DC; Center for Transforming Lives in Fort Worth, Texas; Chicago Commons in Chicago, Illinois; Garrett County Community Action Committee in Oakland, Maryland; Jeremiah Project based in Williamsburg Virginia; San Antonio Dual Gen in San Antonio, Texas; United Way of Greater Austin in Austin, Texas; and Valley Settlement in Carbondale, Colorado.
