Evidence2Success in Action: In Alabama, State Grant Expands a Proven Program

Sel­ma, Alaba­ma, is one of six com­mu­ni­ties imple­ment­ing the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Evidence2Success™ frame­work, which com­bines pub­lic health and pre­ven­tion sci­ence to improve well-being for young people.

The part­ner­ship recent­ly received a $50,000 grant from the Alaba­ma Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ic and Com­merce to sup­port and expand the use of the Strong African Amer­i­can Fam­i­lies pro­gram — a cul­tur­al­ly respon­sive mod­el for strength­en­ing fam­i­ly inter­ac­tions and reduc­ing risky ado­les­cent behaviors.

“This grant is an impor­tant mile­stone for Sel­ma,” says Amoret­ta Mor­ris, direc­tor of the Casey Foundation’s nation­al com­mu­ni­ty strate­gies. ​“One of the pri­ma­ry goals of Evidence2Success is to expand test­ed and effec­tive pro­grams for youth in low-income neigh­bor­hoods, and that’s exact­ly what this fund­ing will do. We’re excit­ed to see that Selma’s great work is gain­ing traction.”

Sel­ma is using the Strong African Amer­i­can Fam­i­lies pro­gram to help young peo­ple referred from the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem deal with chal­lenges iden­ti­fied through local Youth Expe­ri­ence Sur­vey data. These chal­lenges include: a per­ceived risk of drug use, friends with anti­so­cial behav­ior and poor fam­i­ly management.

The five oth­er com­mu­ni­ties car­ry­ing out the Evidence2Success frame­work are Kearns Town­ship in Salt Lake Coun­ty, Utah; Mobile, Alaba­ma; Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island; Lib­er­ty City in Mia­mi, Flori­da; and South City in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee. In all six loca­tions, pub­lic sys­tem and res­i­dent lead­ers are com­ing togeth­er to gath­er data, iden­ti­fy pri­or­i­ties and then shift pub­lic fund­ing to address these pri­or­i­ties using proven programs.

Read about the Strong African Amer­i­can Fam­i­lies Program