One of the many ways that the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) fulfills its mission of transforming children's lives through innovation in research, practice, and policy is by collaborating with North Carolina state agencies and other partners. The Impact Center at FPG’s Build Up project is one of the most recent efforts to help partner organizations design effective systems for delivering their policy programs and activities.

Through Build Up’s work with the Division of Child and Family Well-Being (DCFW) of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), the team supports the state’s partners on the ground in implementing programs, policies, and practices. Build Up practitioners offer DCFW access to implementation science and human-centered design thinking, helping state workers form their teams, envision their work, and collaborate with their funded partners. The FPG team is actively engaged with partners in state government, philanthropy, statewide human services nonprofits, and Local Management Entities/Managed Care Organizations, which manage the care of NC Medicaid beneficiaries receiving services for mental health, developmental disabilities, or substance use disorders.

The multi-disciplinary FPG team, led by Senior Implementation Specialist Robin Jenkins, PhD, includes Implementation Specialists Lena Harris, MSW, and Cassie Koester, MSW; Project Manager Stephanie Catlett, MEd; and Technical Assistance Specialist Adam Holland, PhD. Program Assistant Barbara Lowery supports the team. They share the belief that improving outcomes requires a deliberate focus on how to support change. The FPG team works as thought partners and capacity builders for DCFW, collaborating on a variety of child behavioral health and related early childhood initiatives. In addition, FPG’s Build Up Team has been asked to facilitate annual strategic thinking with the Child Behavioral Health Team.

“We dive into key capacity areas, recognizing that if our partners are able to apply different implementation frameworks, tools and approaches, it ultimately betters their day-to-day lives and the outcomes for children and families,” said Koester. “I love real-time feedback when our partners share that an implementation strategy or a tool that we've talked through with them improves their practice and then has a ripple effect throughout the support system.”

Koester said that the majority of Build Up’s practice and support approaches focus on capacity building efforts and tailoring resources to each project’s needs, including creating specific toolkits and sharing resources with partners, particularly through the Build Up web hub. “We dive into key capacity areas, recognizing that if our partners are able to apply different implementation frameworks, tools and approaches, it ultimately betters their day-to-day lives and the outcomes for children and families,” she said. “I love real-time feedback when our partners share that an implementation strategy or a tool that we've talked through with them improves their practice and then has a ripple effect throughout the support system.”

The team also works to layer in a more robust workforce development system, which Harris noted is a critical element in human services agencies. “We have conversations with employees about what effective implementation looks like within their context and how we can work with them on strategies that best apply to their situation,” she said. She highlighted the importance of co-creation between the agencies and the FPG team in building capacities.

The importance of creating space for the partner agencies to be thoughtful and intentional in how they approach goals and initiatives they wish to implement was emphasized by Holland. “Taking the expertise that exists in these organizations about the way they operate and then bringing in our own expertise about implementation science and how particular types of changes can effectively shift areas such as workforce development is the key to success,” he said. “Our work helps organizations that are working toward the wellbeing of children.”

Jenkins is grateful to DCFW Child Behavioral Health Team Lead Sharon Bell, and DCFW Director Yvonne Copeland, for their belief in the value of FPG’s partnership with them. He said that the investment of Bell and Copeland in FPG’s work with the state team demonstrates their commitment to a new way for state government to work with funded projects.

“Rather than typically funding community agencies and telling them what to do, many government agencies now see a gap that needs to be filled through an implementation support role,” said Jenkins. “It's not just about accountability but also about capacity building.”  In this parallel process, Jenkins and his colleagues educate the state team, have them role model implementation practice competencies, and practice applying them in their state infrastructure. The state then uses those practices with their funded projects and programs so that organizations—and ultimately the people that they serve—benefit through the deliberate, well-thought out set of strategies that implementation practice offers.