Adopt, Adapt and Invent
The theory or plan for change, in particular, should frequently be expanded or deepened to incorporate feedback and lessons from experience about what it takes to achieve meaningful and sustainable change.
This community change guide captures, distills and uses community knowledge, data, resident voice and other information in ways that assure accountability to improved results for children and families. It outlines how Making Connections sought to help communities evaluate and refine their work using a “learning while doing” approach. In this report, communities can learn how to measure, assess and learn from their work, staying accountable not only to better long-term results for vulnerable children and families but to the community-driven vision and processes needed to generate those results.
Essential elements of learning in the context of a community change initiative include creating a vision for change, creating a theory of change, measuring and evaluating the change, creating knowledge for others and creating knowledge-based tools.