Evaluation identifies key drivers for progress in Doña Ana County, NM pilot
What We Did
Chapin Hall conducted a developmental evaluation of Doña Ana County’s pilot of the 100% New Mexico model to prevent adversity and childhood trauma by ensuring access to 10 vital services. This study investigated implementation of the pilot led by the Doña Ana Resilience Leaders and sought to document key drivers of this cross-sector, collective impact approach and to identify critical aspects of local context that influenced initial progress. Our goal was to inform the leadership of the Anna, Age Eight Institute and implementers in Doña Ana County about the pilot’s successes and challenges with a focus on collective impact and continuous quality improvement.
What We Found
Our evaluation found that that the Doña Ana Resilience Leaders pilot already demonstrated considerable progress on key dimensions of the 100% New Mexico model, particularly in the areas of continuous quality improvement and conditions for collective impact. Progress was shown with respect to each of the five core conditions for collective impact. Our findings elevated successes, challenges, and critical opportunities to deepen the pilot’s influence within and beyond Doña Ana County. We found progress varied significantly among the teams working in the 10 vital service sectors prioritized in the 100% New Mexico model.
Two critical facilitators were:
- Existing sector networks, including relationship-building fostered through the Doña Ana Resilience Leaders structure; and
- Strategic efforts undertaken by the sector teams to develop new partnerships to ensure access to vital services.
What It Means
Given evaluation findings, the 100% New Mexico model should further define the role of Sector Teams in operationalizing their county’s local continuous improvement and collective impact efforts. Differentiating capacity-building investments among the Sector Teams could also help address the unique priorities and needs of each sector.
In Doña Ana County, pilot findings also suggest the benefit of strengthening communication channels both among and beyond Resilience Leaders participants. In scaling the model to new counties in the future, the 100% New Mexico approach should explicitly cultivate a shared vision across the 10 vital sectors.
At the same time, it is vital that community values inform how local leads and the Sector Teams understand and seek to mitigate the barriers that residents confront in accessing the 10 vital services. Finally, the design and resource needs associated with a creating the “backbone infrastructure” for a local 100% New Mexico initiative should be further articulated; this infrastructure represents a core condition for collective impact and can help accelerate progress toward achieving the goals of 100% New Mexico.
For a larger overview of how counties in New Mexico adapted the 100% New Mexico model, read the report on ensuring access to 10 vital services.