The unprecedented scale and success of the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) in closing the achievement gap has elicited curiosity around the world. People want to know: what is the "secret ingredient" that is producing results where decades of social programs have failed.

The "secret" though, has been in plain sight for years, operating in more-affluent communities: supporting children from the womb through college, doing whatever it takes to overcome any barrier to a child's successful development. Many community stakeholders and policymakers have already started examining the HCZ children's anti-poverty model. The HCZ Practitioners Institute was established to aid organizations and locales in adapting the model. Hundreds of practitioners have attended the Practitioner’s Institute and brought lessons learned back to their communities and their own initiatives.

HCZ's success highlights the need for any federal effort aimed at eradicating child poverty to be multifaceted. Five core principles, applied in a strategic, coordinated way, are necessary to maximize opportunities for children to achieve such success:

1. Serve an entire neighborhood comprehensively and at scale.
2. Create a comprehensive pipeline of support.
3. Build community among residents, institutions, and stakeholders, who help to create the environment necessary for children's healthy development.
4. Evaluate program outcomes and create a feedback loop that cycles data back to management for use in improving and refining program offerings.
5. Cultivate a culture of success rooted in passion, accountability, leadership, and teamwork.

For the last two years, HCZ and PolicyLink have been partnering to develop a policy framework for a federal Promise Neighborhoods program, based on the HCZ core principles. (Email promiseneighborhoods@policylink.org to receive updates on this program.)  A memo -- Promise Neighborhoods: Recommendations for a National Children's Anti-Poverty Program Inspired by the Harlem Children's Zone -- was submitted to the Administration during Obama’s transition into the White House in December 2009. In addition a large national conference was developed due to the efforts by PolicyLink and other partners.

HCZ and PolicyLink sponsored Changing the Odds: Learning from the Harlem Children's Zone® Model, a two-day conference in November 2009, where more than 1,000 leaders from nonprofit, community, government, and philanthropic organizations participated. Participants focused on how to transform their communities by replicating the innovative HCZ model. The conference addressed issues critical for those developing a local initiative: strategic planning, creating collaborations, evaluating programs, fundraising, engaging the community, and developing a pipeline of best practice programs. The HCZ white paper, Whatever It Takes, is available for more details on the model.

Two documents have been produced by PolicyLink and partners to help direct this process; the first is Focusing on Results in Promise Neighborhoods Recommendations for the Federal Initiative, a discussion paper jointly authored by HCZ, PolicyLink, and the Center for the Study of Social Policy, with contributions by Child Trends. The paper will be useful to any community-based, community change effort. It describes how a focus on results would contribute to the Promise Neighborhoods Initiative, from the planning, design, startup activities and program implementation through the evaluation of the individual sites. We welcome your feedback and comments.

The second document, Outcomes and Indicators for Children An Analysis to Inform Discussions about Promise Neighborhoods was produced by Child Trends and is a companion piece to the Focusing on Results paper. It is a synthesis of research about the factors contributing to children’s healthy development, academic success, and college graduation. It also contains a literature review and a list of references that supports the research.

With President Barack Obama calling for 20 Promise Neighborhoods based on the HCZ model, people in the field have become more eager than ever apply and implement this framework in their own communities. The President’s FY 2011 budget in the Department of Education has proposed $210 million in funding for the Promise Neighborhoods program added to the $10 million already allotted for planning grants in FY2010.

Please email promiseneighborhoods@policylink.org to be placed on our mailing list and receive updates on the federal Promise Neighborhoods initiative.