Partner, Plan, Act
Our Approach: Community Systems Development with Families and Equity at the Center
Community Systems Development Starts with a Conversation
Community systems development relies on building strong, trusting relationships with community stakeholders to meaningfully understand issues in the community. It also engages impacted groups in conversation to understand, identify, and solve issues. Discussing issues from a community systems development mindset looks like using systems thinking approaches to identify the issues, root causes, and solutions. This includes analyzing data, looking at trends and patterns, and thinking critically about issues that persist.
Community Building is Collaborative
Improving outcomes for young children and families requires bringing together organizations, schools, and community leaders to develop a shared agenda, design strategies, and develop an action plan. This allows communities to address the systems barriers and conditions that prevent families from accessing early childhood services.
In Illinois, we refer to this collaborative process of developing coordinated and integrated local early childhood service delivery systems as community systems development.
