P&P October 2016

Telling your story—your successes, what you’ve learned—is important for continuous quality improvement, to build confidence among diverse stakeholders, to fortify continuation and growth for these efforts, and to contribute to the field to advance larger scale outcomes and systems change.

10. Future outlook is an effective birth control Long-term relationships with trusted, caring adults are essential (see item 3 above) to guide youth and young adults through keystone experi- ences that shape and anchor future outlook so that children are born at the appropriate time for healthy family formation. Through their development and completion of milestones, youth and young adults build and acquire the health, financial independence, and social capital they will use, not only in their adult lives, but will pass on to their children. 11. Don’t forget the males It is important to counteract the societal bias to primarily target females in pregnancy prevention strategies. Interventions and outreach should actively engage both males and females. 12. Parenting youth need specialized support Being young parents can be chal- lenging, as they are developing as young people while also developing their role as parents (see http:// www.cssp.org/reform/child-welfare/ expectant-parenting-youth-in-foster- care) . For this we implemented Pregnant and Parenting Planning Conferences, a voluntary, specialized conference to assist expectant and parenting youth and young adults (mothers, fathers—custodial and non- custodial) with planning for healthy pregnancy and parenting outcomes, identifying appropriate resources and services, and preparing for a suc- cessful transition to independence. Our neighbor and fellow Institute peer, Los Angeles County, developed this model and provided us with training and technical assistance to implement it. Developing financial literacy and management, and par- ticipating in early childhood in-home visitation are key to strengthening the young family. 13. Outcome evaluation is important Telling your story—your successes, what you’ve learned—is important

desired state and a current one. In Orange County’s case, they added strategies from their “full picture” understanding of what their teens experience, generating ones to increase availability of “askable adults,” future planning skills, engagement of males, and viewing healthy sexual development as part of adult-to-adult relationship skills. 2. Dedicated peer champions, leaders, mentors, staff, and com- munity partners are built through investing in ongoing two-way communication. Each county saw overcoming their challenges as daunting to improbable until they began the process of forming sponsor groups and improvement teams involving a broad range of participants with similar goals and complementary resources and skills. Orange County has made huge time investments in this approach and from our viewpoint transformed their image from “too conceptual” to “expert, trusted partners and leaders” in their own right. 3. Data and analysis is easy to back burner … and then you might get burned. Our primary lessons learned as designers of learning and change manage- ment tools include providing much more design support to construct analytical frameworks that define the data needed to test and evolve a theory-of-change that connects desired outcomes, factors that enable them or get in their way, and health and human service programs that will most

for continuous quality improvement, to build confidence among diverse stakeholders, to fortify continuation and growth for these efforts, and to contribute to the field to advance larger scale outcomes and systems change. It is also complex and requires expertise. We find ourselves still trying to figure out the best approach. How do we: capture data in the simplest manner, navigate across data systems, measure change, analyze the data, present the data and findings, and share our story. 14. Ego says, “Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace.” Spirit says, “Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.” —Marianne Williamson Keep focused and celebrate the abundance of successes along the way, including the lessons learned. Advance gradually but surely. The progress Orange County is making to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection is readily apparent from the descriptions above. Their experience in an extended peer-to-peer learning setting is unique, though in three ways it mirrors others’ experiences and learning: 1. Strategies to improve outcomes are generated through both external scanning and one’s own critical thinking. These counties learned about four specific evi- dence-based strategies to consider using, and they also learned a critical thinking path to use on an ongoing basis to generate other strategies, in part by reflecting on the reasons for gaps between a

See Teen Pregnancy on page 42

October 2016   Policy&Practice 41