United Way for Southeastern Michigan (UWSEM)’s 2011 Social Innovation Fund Project (SIF 2011) was a Detroit-area initiative that brought together UWSEM partners to increase the number of young children prepared to enter school. The initiative:

  • Focused on children’s early learning (especially their literacy)
  • Featured programs that mainly incorporate two-generation (parent-and-child) models
  • Aimed for multicultural populations as their targeted audience

To accomplish this, SIF 2011 sought to strengthen the use of evidence in social-change interventions, while also encouraging innovative practice models.

Study Goals:

The goal of the study was to examine the five-year implementation of the Detroit-area SIF 2011 initiative and its outcomes.

Research Questions:

The research questions were:

  • Implementation Evaluation:
    • Why were some outcomes achieved but not others?
    • Why were some participants more successful than others?
    • What changes occurred over the life of the intervention that may have accounted for the degree of its success?
    • What specific challenges were encountered in implementing the intervention, and what knowledge and capacities were gained among those implementing it?
  • Outcomes evaluation:
    • Were any of the students better off because of their participation in one or more intervention activities?

Findings:

The study found the following:

  • Across programs, more than half of participants (57 percent) made meaningful progress over a program year on one or more measures of kindergarten readiness.
  • Among the five subgrantees, this success rate varied between 53 and 61 percent.
  • On one or more measures of the second outcome, Parents and Caregivers Nurture Children's Development, three programs had data appropriate to the COCI analysis.
  • In aggregate, 62 percent of participants made meaningful improvement on this outcome.

For more information, download the full report.

Full report

Full Report
UWSEM_2011_Portfolio_Wide_Final_Report_v1_3118_508.pdf

Further information

Program/Intervention
Bib to Backpack (Common Outcomes, Common Indicators Analysis)/Children Ready to Learn, Parents and Caregivers Nurturing Child’s Development, Communities Promote Child Wellbeing
Implementing Organization
ACCESS, Living Arts, NKFM-PEACH, Southwest Counseling Solutions, Leaps and Bounds Family Services, Macomb Family Services
Intermediary(s)

United Way for Southeastern Michigan

AmeriCorps Program(s)
Social Innovation Fund
Age(s) Studied
0-5 (Early childhood)
Study Type(s)
Outcomes
Study Design(s)
Quasi-Experimental (QED)
Researcher/Evaluator
Child Trends
Published Year
2019
Study Site Location (State)
Michigan