Coalitions

Cities First Readers (CFR) is a collaboration of numerous nonprofits and all three public library systems across New York City designed to support the development of a literacy rich ecosystem. Their overarching goal is to ensure young children and their families receive needed supports to become successful readers. The collaborative partners are implementing numerous services and programs including parent education, book distributions, guided reading programs, professional development, home visiting and public awareness campaigns. A&O led the partners through a process of clarifying their goals, outcomes and strategies as well as each partner’s capacity for evaluation and their role within the collaborative. They were then ready to take the next step and document the benefits or impacts of this extensive endeavor.   A&O conducts several independent evaluation inquiries each year utilizing a variety of methods analysis for statistical significance using standardized assessments, geocoding and mapping, descriptive illustrations of service statistics, interviews, observations, and surveys of numerous stakeholder groups. A few of these recent and current inquires have examined:

• the strength and maturity of the coalition using the lens of Collective Impact[1],
• whether targeted CFR interventions lead to improvements in knowledge, skill, and behavior among parents to support early literacy for young children
• the concentration of CFR services as related to poverty levels across all NY City council districts
• if attendance is improving at library story times within high-risk neighborhoods? Is there a correlation with the CFR public awareness campaign?
• how has CFR adapted and responded in the time of the COVID19 pandemic
• is there consistency across CFR partners in the use of evidence-based/ best practices for book distribution and associated educational messaging to support home environments and early literacy development?

A&O was chosen for their years of evaluation experience in early childhood and literacy related programming and is thrilled to support this important initiative. 

[1] Preskill, H., Parkhurst, Marcie, Juster, J.S., Guide to Evaluating Collective Impact; Collective Impact Forum, FSG.

The Family Reading Partnership is a coalition in Ithaca, NY, comprised of individuals, businesses, schools, libraries, and other organizations acting to “create a culture of literacy” to assure all children have early, frequent, and pleasurable experiences with books, as a special part of everyday family life, right from the start!  A&O worked with the Partners to build evaluation capacity, guide a literature review, and develop programmatic logic models. A&O conducted external evaluations of three programs and with a participatory1 approach built the Partnership’s capacity to continue their evaluation work internally.

 [1] Whitmore. E (Ed) (1998).  Special Issue:  Understanding and Practicing Participatory Evaluation.  New Directions in Evaluation.  Vol. 80, pp. 1-99

Health Foundation of Western and Central New York: Central New York Neighborhood Initiative — Helping Seniors to Age in Place

The Health Foundation of Western and Central New York in partnership with the Gifford Foundation funded a Central New York Neighborhood Action Initiative (CNYNAI) to create and test evidence-based practices that will enable seniors to remain in their homes and own communities as they grow older rather than in nursing homes or other forms of institutionalized care. To do this, the Foundation provided seven neighborhood-based organizations with resources to enable them to test best practice approaches designed to help people continue to live in their neighborhoods and to share knowledge, ideas and lessons learned with each other.

Apter & O’Connor served as the evaluator for this exciting initiative.  In addition, we facilitated “learning communities” for the seven selected organizations.  We were able to articulate the unique characteristics of each project that may have had the most significant influence or impact on creating conditions and supports that allow elderly residents to age in their own homes and neighborhoods.   Each of the NAI funded agencies successfully served their target population of low-income seniors within their identified neighborhoods and received positive reviews and accolades from their participants. All found the Learning Sessions a valuable opportunity to network, share ideas and resources and support each other.  Our final report, still in use, offered ideas for lessons learned by the Foundations as well as the seven agencies in serving this often challenging population in unique and creative ways.

Literacy Powerline

Apter & O’Connor is collaborating with the national organization, Literacy Powerline. The mission of Literacy Powerline is to increase literacy levels through effective and sustainable community collaboration and engagement. Literacy Powerline works with educators, business and labor leaders, philanthropic organizations, civic and faith-based groups, policymakers, literacy providers and students to demonstrate that everyone thrives when a community is committed to 100% literacy.  Scores of communities across the country have accessed the resources and capabilities of the Literacy Powerline team.  A&O is offering strategic planning, needs assessment and evaluation expertise to coalitions across the country to develop effective and highly accountable literacy initiatives within their own communities.  We are excited to be part of the Literacy Powerline team working with the Annie E. Casey National Support Center for the Campaign for Grade Level Reading to provide consultation for accountability systems, implementation and sustainability efforts of funded projects, particularly in rural areas.

The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

Closer to home, Apter & O’Connor has designed an evaluation of the Herkimer Oneida Literacy Coalition for Literacy Powerline.  The approach is an empowerment model to facilitate stakeholder ownership of the evaluation activities and allow for on-going feedback, dialogue and appropriate adjustment.  The evaluation is designed to measure the development of a fully functioning literacy coalition and the impact on the community.

A&O has joined Literacy Powerline to support the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading in communities across New York State. The Campaign is a collaborative effort by foundations, nonprofit partners, states and communities across the nation to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship. The Campaign focuses on an important predictor of school success and high school graduation—grade-level reading by the end of third grade.  Recognizing that schools can’t “do it alone”, the Campaign seeks to engage and mobilize whole communities to remove barriers, expand learning opportunities and assist parents to serve as partners in their child’s education.  A&O along with Literacy Powerline is helping to build a statewide network of GLR Communities across New York by offering coalition building, coaching, technical assistance and resources to individual communities and cities, so they can build their own unique networks and realize the goals of the Campaign.