Moving From Partnership to Collective Accountability and Sustainable Change: Applying a Systems-Change Model to Foundations’ Evolving Roles

· In a time of scarce resources and significant needs, funders may seek to maximize the impact of their grantmaking through collaboration. While many foundations move well from identifying a problem to building broader awareness and forging key partnerships, they typically flounder in trying to move beyond collaboration to a sense of mutual responsibility or collective accountability for the greater good, which is a precondition for sustainable systems change. · This article discusses three complex initiatives that made sustainable changes in integrated behavioral health and primary care. Using a conceptual framework based on the Building Blocks of Systems Change model, this article focuses on achieving collective accountability and sustainable systems change, highlights common challenges, and presents guidelines for funders. · While the article details how various policy approaches and tools drove cultural transformation in these three funding regions, the conceptual framework and lessons learned apply to a broad range of environments and intended outcomes. These lessons can be used to move initiatives to collective accountability and systems change, so that the change becomes the new “normal,” independent of external funding or expectations

Meeting the Needs of Children and Families with Schools of the 21st Century

In many schools across the United States, educators are opening their doors to children as young as three or four years of age or even younger. Although much of this attention concentrates on providing disadvantaged children with preschool education, an increasing number of schools are beginning to address the needs of children and families of all incomes by offering child care and family support services not traditionally associated with public education. This recent increase in interest among educators reflects the growing awareness that high quality early childhood education enhances school readiness and prevents later social problems. Educators acknowledge that the current inadequate supply of high quality child care services potentially harms families and children. This is of broad concern because the negative consequences of poor quality care, or the lack of care, may hurt children\u27s performance throughout their tenure in the education system. In this Article, we discuss the School of the 21st Century-an education reform initiative designed to address the nation\u27s child care problem while enhancing the capacity of schools to meet the educational needs of all children

Potential Savings in the Cost of Caring for Alzheimer's Disease: Treatment with Rivastigmine

Alzheimer's disease, Antidementias, Cost analysis, Pharmacoeconomics, Rivastigmine