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EdRedesign at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) has received a $200,000 grant from the Barr Foundation and an anonymous gift of $3 million to establish an Institute for Success Planning to help communities redesign their systems of support and opportunity for children and youth.
“These grants represent a huge step forward for EdRedesign. Every child deserves to be seen, heard, understood, and responded to. We aim to work with education and community leaders to put in place an education system that meets children where they are and gives them what they need inside and outside of school. Thanks to these substantial grants, our institute will work with communities on the ground to efficiently leverage resources and customize supports to ensure every child is given a fair shot at success in work and life,” said HGSE Professor Paul Reville, founder and director at EdRedesign.
EdRedesign is advancing a holistic model of developmental and educational opportunity for children. The Institute for Success Planning will work to ensure that all children have clear and accessible pathways to well-being and opportunities to succeed by promoting a relationship-based, community-grounded strategy that joins individualized student Success Plans with a coordinated system of supports managed by cross-sector collaborations such as Children’s Cabinets.
At the community level, cross-sector coalitions like Children’s Cabinets gather key leaders from government, NGOs, and the private sector to ensure programs, processes, and policies are effectively supporting the healthy development of all children. At the individual level, Success Planning connects each child to an adult Navigator, who creates a personalized roadmap to the supports and enrichments the child needs to thrive.
“We believe that every student deserves a high-quality education, and young learners thrive when their education is personalized, holistic, rigorous, and supportive,” said Jenny Curtin, Barr Foundation’s senior program officer for education. “We’re hopeful that the work of EdRedesign’s Institute for Success Planning will provide important insights into what constitutes high-quality educational opportunities for every young person.”
Some of the institute’s main goals will be to scale the Success Planning and cross-sector collaborative model, identify funding sources, cultivate a pipeline of leaders, research impact and best practices, create tools to aid implementation, and raise awareness about the need for this holistic approach to child development.
Founded in 2014 by Paul Reville, former Massachusetts secretary of education and professor of practice of educational policy and administration at HGSE, EdRedesign supports the movement to ensure that all children, especially those affected by racism and poverty, have clear pathways to robust social, emotional, physical, and academic development. EdRedesign engages in three core strategies to catalyze change in the field: research, advocacy, and collaborative action with organizations and communities redesigning their systems of support for children and youth.
“As a powerful field catalyst, HGSE’s EdRedesign partners with communities who want to transform the social compact — the intersection of community, education, and child development — to bolster children’s well-being and success. The institute for Success Planning is launching this important and ambitious initiative to ensure that opportunity is not tied to the accident of birth,” noted HGSE Dean Bridget Long.
