Collaborative Convening 2018

Stephanie Cherrington, Executive Director of Eastside Pathways

It was inspiring to hear about the hard work happening in each of the collaboratives by so many at the first Eastside Pathways All Collaborative Convening. It was stimulating, informative and moving.

The reminder from Jennifer Blatz, CEO of StriveTogether, to hang in there and keep going resonated deeply with me. “Our common work of shaping systems which support all children from cradle to career can be exhausting. It can feel relentless and, at times, like nobody really cares. But they do, especially the kids who are benefiting from our partnership.”

Working together is not always easy. The pull to simply do things ourselves can be strong. But systems are not made up of a single individual or single organization. We will never change systems if we don’t work together. Agreeing to common goals, collaboration, and reviewing data together takes time – something that most of us have so little of.

Jeff Edmondson, CEO of Ballmer Group

It is only through work like this [that Eastside Pathways is doing] – with the community working together – that you could actually make sure that the resources are available. My favorite thinking about collective impact is not its definition, but the concept that high-quality resources that are tailored to an individual’s needs are at their fingertips. That’s what everybody should be striving for.

For example, when kids show up in school for third grade, and they are behind, there should be a tutor sitting there working with them from day one because we already know they are behind. But we wait until the second or third quarter to realize they are behind and then we hustle to try and catch up.

So, what we all can do working together is how can we make sure high-quality resources are there, tailored to individual needs.