STRATEGIC PLAN

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Mission Statement
Strategic Approaches
Goals and Objectives

Goal 1 - Facilitate and Expand Interagency Collaboration
Goal 2 - Identify and Develop Useable and Useful Information
Goal 3 - Foster the Exchange of Useful and Useable Information
Goal 4 - Evaluate the Center's Activities

MISSION STATEMENT

It is the mission of the Center to support and to promote a reoriented national preparedness to foster the development, achievement, and adjustment of children with or at risk of developing serious emotional disturbance. The Center will do so by facilitating collaboration at a Federal, state, and local level and by supporting the identification, production, exchange, and use of knowledge to enhance the capacity of those involved with children and youth with emotional and behavioral problems to develop, implement, and sustain effective practices, programs, and policies.

STRATEGIC APPROACHES

The Center will employ four strategic approaches to achieve its goals and objectives:

(A) Analyze: The Center will identify and analyze needs, map infrastructure, and evaluate activities. The Center will undertake a set of assessment, mapping, and evaluation activities to enable it and its partners to avoid duplication of effort, to strategically target activities aimed at improving the levels of collaboration and effective practice, and to continuously improve the efficacy of its efforts. These activities will include locating and mapping resources, assessing information needs, identifying and monitoring barriers to and opportunities for collaboration, assessing opportunities for and barriers to access and exchange information, and assessing the impact of Center activities.

(Sy) Synthesize: The Center will identify, produce, package or support the packaging of useful and useable information that will respond to information needs and improve the capacity of those involved with children and youth with emotional and behavioral problems to develop, implement, and sustain effective practices, programs, and policies.

(Su) Support: The Center will link stakeholders and support the communication, the dissemination, and the effective use of information. The Center will undertake activities to strategically communicate information and facilitate the exchange of information between and among diverse stakeholders, and members of different knowledge and practice communities.

(C) Collaborate: The Center will undertake activities to link and align organizations that can support the improvement of practice and collaboration for children with emotional and behavioral problems and to support the capacity of individuals and groups to coordinate, collaborate, and support others in developing, implementing, and sustaining the use of effective programs and practices.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Goal 1: Facilitate and Expand Effective Interagency Collaboration

Products: A variety of "maps" delineating the national infrastructure of support for improvement of collaboration and practice, meetings and events that facilitate Federal, state, and local collaboration; information products that describe or support collaboration; linkages among members of key stakeholder groups and knowledge/practice communities.

 

Outcomes: Through developing a broader understanding of relevant agencies and organizations (including their missions, activities, projects, and centers), and of the dynamics of effective collaboration, the Center will facilitate more coordinated and sustainable efforts, and the realignment of activities where possible, to improve services and outcomes for children and youth with emotional and behavioral problems, and increase the links among members of different stakeholder groups and members of different knowledge/practice communities.

Objective 1: Promote and Facilitate Federal Collaboration
Activities

• (A) Obtain and analyze information on projects and centers funded by OSERS, CMHS, OJJDP, & other relevant Federal Agencies, and national organizations.
• (Sy) Map infrastructure, synthesize in report, and communicate results through appropriate mechanisms.
• (C) Align the Center's activities with other Federal centers and projects.
• (C) Serve as a catalyst for aligning the infrastructure.
• (C/Su) Support Federal collaboration.

Objective 2: Promote and Facilitate State Interagency Collaboration
Activities:

• (A) Monitor the development of collaboration at a state level.
• (A/C) Facilitate state-level collaboration in selected states.
• (A/C) Identify and link to key players.
• (Sy/C) Collect and disseminate information on successful state-wide efforts.
• (C) Work with six states (one from each RRC region)to provide in-depth dissemination and tracking of Center information products.
• (C/Su) Support state-level collaboration.

Objective 3: Promote and Facilitate Local Interagency Collaboration
Activities:

• (A) Monitor the development of collaboration in selected local communities.
• (C) Facilitate local collaboration in selected local communities.
• (Sy/Su) Collect and nationally disseminate information on successful local collaborations.
• (C/Su) Support local collaboration.

Objective 4: Link Organizations and Individuals
Activities:

• (A) Identify and obtain information on national organizations and associations that serve children and youth with emotional and behavioral problems.
• (C) Create linkages among organizations that serve children and youth with emotional and behavioral problems.
• (Sy/Su/C) Link members of diverse stakeholder groups and members of diverse knowledge or practice communities through synthesis and exchange activities.

Goal 2: Identify and Develop Useable and Useful Information

Products: A variety of information products will be identified and/or developed. The majority of these products will focus on effective practices and programs, with the remainder responding to specific needs identified through the Center's information needs assessment.

Outcome: A range of useful and useable information products will be identified and developed for dissemination to the Center's target audiences through use of teams of professionals, family members, and in some cases youths.

Objective 1: Identify End-User Information Needs
Activities:

• (A) Identify potential respondent pools.
• (A) Develop information needs assessment instruments.
• (A) Survey samples of target audiences to determine information needs.
• (A) Analyze data.
• (Sy/Su) Summarize findings.
• (Sy/Su) Communicate findings to Center work groups, strategic partners, and the infrastructure of agencies and programs that support the development of effective programs and practices.

Objective 2: Identify Useful and Useable Information
Activities:

• (A) Develop preliminary list of extant sources of information that respond to the information needs of target audiences.
• (A) Identify new sources of practice-based knowledge by identifying and soliciting nominations of promising practices and programs.
• (Sy) Collect and analyze data from nurseries and greenhouses to cull lessons from promising and effective practices and programs.
• (Sy) Collect directory and contextual information on promoting programs and policies and incorporate on Web site.

Objective 3: Assure That Information is Useable
Activities:

• (A) Submit preliminary list of available information products to focus group teams for review and refinement.
• (A) Submit available materials to collaborating teams for review.
• (A) Submit new Center products to quality review teams.

Objective 4: Develop Useful and Useable Information Products
Activities:

• (Sy) Convene work groups to synthesize and develop information products based on empirical and practice data.
• (Su) Convene interdisciplinary special interest groups to share information and coordinate activities regarding critical areas.

Goal 3: Support the Exchange and Effective Use of Information

Products: A variety of information products will be disseminated, the majority of which will focus on effective and promising practices and programs. The remainder will be special purpose materials that respond to specific needs identified through the Center's information needs assessments.

Outcome: Through use of a variety of dissemination, exchange, and support mechanisms (that were identified through the Center's information needs assessments) the target groups for the Center's work (policy-makers, professionals, families) will have access to up-to-date information about effective practices and effective ways to collaborate and improve their level of practice.

Objective 1: Identify Appropriate Information Exchange Mechanisms
Activities:

• (A) Analyze information needs assessment data regarding preferred ways of receiving information.
• (Sy) Identify appropriate information exchange media.
• (Sy/C) Share information about media preference with strategic partners and other members of the Federal and national infrastructure.

Objective 2: Create Mechanisms to Facilitate Access to the Exchange of Information
Activities:

• (Su/C) Develop a web site that addresses the information needs of target audiences, provides links to sources of information that can help improve programs and practice, and provides links to other sites.
• (Su) Develop and monitor toll-free number.
• (Sy/Su) Create, maintain, and update database of national projects.

Objective 3: Develop or Support the Development of Capacity Among Strategic Groups to Access, Exchange, and Use Information, and Foster the Exchange Of Useable and Useful Information.
Activities:

• (Su) Develop and implement a strategy to link families to the World Wide Web and other electronic information sources.
• (Su) Develop and implement mechanisms to enhance the capacity of local linkers to support collaboration and effective practice.
• (Su) Communicate useful and useable information through newsletter columns, journal articles, special publications, computer-based discussion groups, audiocassettes, videos, conference presentations, and posting information on web site.
• (Su) Develop annual communication plan that describes Center products and dissemination targets and mechanisms.

Goal 4: Evaluate the Center's Activities

Products: A finalized evaluation plan and a variety of formative and summative evaluation reports.

Outcome: Formative and Summative evaluation information about the Center's activities and products.

Objective 1: Document the Center's activities and products
Activities:

• (A) Archive Center products and record Center activities.
• (A/Sy) Catalogue products and activities, and report to Advisory Group.

Objective 2: Monitor activities and provide formative data that will enable the Center to modify its strategies and activities, when necessary
Activities:

• (A) Solicit and assess input on extent to which Center activities are facilitating collaboration and linkages.
• (A) Solicit and assess input on extent to which Center activities are providing useful and useable information.
• (A) Solicit and assess input on extent to which the Center is effectively fostering the exchange of information.

Objective 3: Evaluate the impact of the Center's collaboration and linkage activities
Activities:

• (A) Finalize collaboration component of Summative Evaluation Plan.
• (A) Collect and analyze data on collaboration and linkage activities.
• (Sy) Prepare collaboration section of Summative Evaluation Report.

Objective 4: Evaluate the impact of the Center's information identification, development and knowledge exchange activities
Activities:

• (A) Finalize information component of Summative Evaluation Plan.
• (A) Collect and analyze data on information identification, development and knowledge exchange activities.
• (Sy) Prepare information component of Summative Evaluation Report.

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