On August 20, cross-sectoral partners from the Ages & Stages Talk to Action series will gather for an Executive Pitch — a progress report to leadership and the broader community on work underway since January 2026 across four focus areas: Early Learning, High School and Beyond, Wellbeing and Mental Health, and Equity.
Why now matters
Since launching the Ages & Stages Cross-CAN Talk to Action series in early 2026, our Collaborative Action Networks have moved deliberately through each phase of this work. Session 1 grounded us in the adaptive leadership challenges and conflicts that hold the status quo in place, using our 3R Framework (Results, Relationships, and Resources) and Factor Analysis to diagnose where systems-level change was getting stuck and which factors were driving current outcomes. Session 2 sharpened that diagnosis into action. Each CAN defined its Results statement, distinguished its universal population from its focus population, and used the CAN Data Menu to identifythe core indicators that will tell us whether conditions are actually improving. Session 3 grounded that planning in real time, surfacing what partners, families, and young people are experiencing across our region: systems under real strain, and a community responding with resilience, creativity, and collective action.
That work has carried us through the scoping phase and into implementation. Partners have validated their focus populations and translated key factors into strategies specific to each outcome area. We’re now ready to run Small Tests of Change, the Plan-Do-Study-Adjust cycle, within each partner’s own lane. Individual involvement is starting to become system-level change, and it only works if leadership is aligned.
These four outcome areas, Early Learning, High School and Beyond, Wellbeing and Mental Health, and Equity, are priorities partners chose together during our 2024-2026 Strategic Planning process. August 20th is the moment to act on that shared investment, to blend and braid resources cross-sectorally so the strategies you all have helped design can move from individual pilots to system-level change.
Leadership needs to be at the table for this. Partners will be reporting out directly to their leadership and the community, and the alignment and support that follows this session will determine how these strategies can be scaled and sustained.
The stakes
Every organization in this coalition is navigating budget cuts. Blending and braiding isn’t a nice-to-have right now — it’s how we protect the families and children who have been historically underserved. This convening is where we make that case, together, and where partners turn the priorities they set into action.
