In 2013, our strategic planning year catalyzed the evolution of our Network from a collaborative group into a community of practice.  Innovation pilot projects facilitated and strengthened cross-sector partnerships and seeded novel approaches to common challenges.  Our community of practice also supported the co-creation and design of innovations between resident partners and community-based agency partners with shared accountability.  These collective actions of the network allowed for a planning phase that moved from blueprint design and visioning to learning through action and efficient piloting of proposed ideas.  We coupled community-based participatory research with improvement methodology to support an iterative and transparent improvement process.

Our innovation projects use an action-oriented learning approach that also serves to build collaborative efforts. More important than any individual project is the potential to support shared learning and collaboration across sectors, within and across neighborhoods, and between community agencies and residents.

This model also strengthened our ability to engage novelty in research-practice partnerships across sectors of health, education, family services, economic stabilization, and legal advocacy and encourage translation and enhancing evidence-based practices to promote child well-being and support protective factors within setting-level interventions.