Innovations
Generating New Knowledge
Through their daily interactions with children, families, communities and systems, CHSA members are aware of complexities to untangle, inequities to dismantle and situations to improve. One way we move from awareness to action is to engage in projects that generate new knowledge by applying science, piloting new solutions and centering equity.
CHSA members come together to identify and conceptualize potential innovation and research projects, then find partners who want to work together to problem-solve “the impossible.”
National Initiatives
Through CHSA’s national network, we partnered with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard on a project that informed the Center’s Science X Design (SxD) module. SxD is now an open-source tool that supports the application of the science of early childhood development to real world problems in a variety of settings. CHSA member partners for this project included: Children & Families First (DE), Nebraska Children’s Home Society, Beech Acres Parenting Center (OH) and Children’s Wisconsin.
A cohort of CHSA members are working with EMPath to pilot the implementation and dissemination of the Mobility Mentoring™ coaching model across multiple programs within a member’s organization. The model equips staff who work in partnership with families to help them acquire the resources, skills and sustained behavior changes that lead to economic independence. CHSA member partners with EMPath include: Children’s Home Society of Florida, Nebraska Children’s Home Society, Acenda Integrated Health (NJ) and Children’s Wisconsin.
Member Institutes
A strength of the CHSA network is our deeply held, shared values. Each of our members is equally committed to improving their practices and the programs and supports they offer to children, families and communities. Some CHSA members do this work through institutes that are established to direct resources and attention to pressing challenges by conducting research, engaging communities, raising awareness and promoting state- and local-level systems and policy change.
Acenda Institute of Health Innovation
New Jersey
The Ahlquist Center for Policy, Practice and Innovation at Brightpoint
Illinois
Brain Science Training Institute
Children & Families First Delaware
Gladney University
Gladney Center for Adoption, Texas
Institute for Family
Children’s Home Society of North Carolina
Institute for Child and Family Well-Being
Children’s Wisconsin
Partner on Innovations
If you are interested in partnering on innovation projects to solve complex problems that disrupt child and family well-being, please email contact@chsamerica.org.