They deal with children in the context of families and families in the context of neighborhoods. They are rooted in the community. They have a long-term preventive orientation. They continue to evolve over time in response to changing circumstances and lessons learned. They operate in settings that support high quality standards.
Supportive managers hold staff accountable for achieving shared purposes.
They operate with enough intensity and perseverence to achieve agreed upon outcomes. They encourage staff to expand the boundaries of their job description, to build strong relationships based on mutual trust and respect. These are the characteristics that make the best kinds of parent education so hard to sustain and spread. When I found that so many of the effective programs described in Within Our Reach had gone out of existence within a few years, I tried to understand why they were not sustained even though they had succeeded in achieving their goals. I found that the organizations that fund and regulate and hold accountable and even mandate specific services are not a good fit with most of what we know works best.