The Children’s Aid Society and Phipps Community Development Corporation (Phipps CDC) today announced they have been awarded a $300,000 planning grant from JPMorgan Chase Foundation to develop a cradle-through-college pathway initiative in the South Bronx. The project will employ an emerging model of multi-sector collaboration, known as collective impact, to promote student success in targeted neighborhoods of the South Bronx where a significant majority of children are born into poor families and graduation rates among adults hover under 10 percent.
“A college diploma is the surest pathway out of poverty,” said Richard R. Buery, Jr., Children’s Aid President and CEO. “With this generous funding, we seek to coordinate the human and financial resources in an underserved community to support the common goal of ensuring that each child in the community has every opportunity to succeed and thrive.”
“We are proud to be a partner in this neighborhood-focused approach to supporting families and the educational achievement of children,” said Dianne Morales, Executive Director/CEO of Phipps Community Development Corporation. “By leveraging existing community assets, the initiative will increase opportunity, strengthen neighborhoods and equip the next generation with the tools they need to transcend poverty through education.”
“We have yet to see two organizations work so seamlessly together around a holistic approach to community development and education, and we are thrilled to be involved,” said Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne, Vice President of Global Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase. “The collective impact concept complements much of the work we are already doing in the area, and we’re eager to stay engaged in the partnership to maximize our impact in the South Bronx.”
The goals of the first phase of the project will be to organize community stakeholders to agree upon a common set of child well-being and academic milestones that lead to student success and ultimately college graduation; to seek new ways to support and partner with neighborhood schools; to utilize data to identify student and community needs and monitor progress; to bolster student academic achievement; and to connect students and their families to services and opportunities that reduce barriers to learning.
Collective impact—a strategy based on the premise that no single organization can affect large-scale, lasting social change alone—has been applied successfully in education reform to boost rates of children adequately prepared for kindergarten, reading and math scores, and high school graduation rates. Through it, collaborating organizations tackle complex, systemic problems by creating a centralized infrastructure, allocating staff to the initiative and creating a process marked by five characteristics: a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication and systems-level coordination.
As multi-service organizations with a trusted presence in the borough, Children’s Aid and Phipps CDC currently enjoy strong partnerships with principals, as well as robust staffing infrastructures within full-service community schools and other school partnerships, community centers, health centers and housing developments. Together the agencies help meet some of the most critical needs of the community, including after-school and summer programs; parent engagement programs; licensed health, dental and mental health services; Head Start and Early Head Start; work programs for disconnected youth; preventive services; work readiness programs; financial literacy programs; foster care; and domestic violence treatment.
With this funding, Children’s Aid and Phipps CDC will partner to leverage their resources and those from different sectors in the Bronx, which may include city government, the school district, the health department, universities and other education, youth development and advocacy groups. To be successful, the initiative will aim to mobilize any and all actors in the South Bronx with a stake in student success to help achieve large-scale social change through shared goals and accountability.
About The Children’s Aid Society
The Children’s Aid Society is an independent, not-for-profit organization established to serve the children of New York City. Our mission is to help children in poverty to succeed and thrive. We do this by providing comprehensive supports to children and their families in targeted high-needs diNew York City neighborhoods. Founded in 1853, it is one of the nation’s largest and most innovative non-sectarian agencies, serving New York’s neediest children. Services are provided in community schools, neighborhood centers, health clinics and camps. For additional information, please call Anthony Ramos at (212) 949-4938/ (917) 204-8214, email anthonyr@childrensaidsociety.org or visit www.childrensaidsociety.org.
About Phipps Community Development Corporation
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, Phipps Community Development Corporation (Phipps CDC) provides a comprehensive network of educational, work-readiness and community resource programs in the Bronx and Manhattan. Phipps CDC serves more than 8,000 children, teens and adults in on-site and neighborhood-based programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start, after-school, summer camp, literacy/ESOL, GED and pre-GED, college prep, work readiness, resident support, and family services. Phipps CDC is the social services affiliate of Phipps Houses, New York City’s oldest and largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing. For more information, contact Brandon Haase at (646) 388-8240/ (646) 761-4646, email bhaase@phippsny.org or visit www.phippsny.org.