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The Children’s Trust is committed to advancing the field through research and innovation that will yield results that influence and challenge the thinking of policymakers, other funders, thought leaders and the public. Research and Innovation funding seeks to create significant, policy-shifting impact upon issues related to improving the lives of all children and families in Miami-Dade County by supporting improvements in child health, development, and safety, as well as increasing parental and community responsibility and involvement on behalf of children.
This funding seeks to extend the knowledge base and scientific evidence regarding best practices in relation to child, youth and family services, policy development, systems reform and/or pressing community needs/service gaps. The Children’s Trust supports implementation and evaluation of innovative programs and rigorous research studies that fit the needs of Miami-Dade County and contribute scientific evidence to the knowledge base through wide dissemination of findings. The goal is to significantly impact important needs or problems faced by children and families in our community and/or to create systemic change.
The Research and Innovation Request for Proposals (RFP) is typically released in mid-summer if funding is available for the following fiscal year. Priorities and application processes are updated each year. When available, the RFP is posted for download at the Seeking Funding page.
Definitions
Research: For the purpose of this funding, research involves a process of scientific inquiry that utilizes systematic investigation and procedures to ascertain the effectiveness of services, programs and/or policy designed to impact the lives of children, youth, and/or families in Miami-Dade County. Furthermore, the research is designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge. Projects are expected to utilize experimental or quasi-experimental designs and to expand a needed knowledge base related to children’s services, including intervention or effectiveness research and/or policy-oriented research. Approaches may involve the comparison of single strategies to one another and/or to combined strategies to determine effectiveness, or more complex causal modeling to better understand how significant variables interact.
Innovation: For the purpose of this funding, innovation is necessary but not sufficient in itself to be considered. Innovation is the process of converting knowledge and ideas into better ways of practice or into new or improved services that are useful and valued by the community. A demonstrated need for innovation and new approaches must be fully justified, including an explanation of the limits of the current knowledge base for practices within the relevant area. The purpose is to fully evaluate the proposed innovation, not simply to implement it. Innovation funds are intended as time-limited pilot or demonstration projects, with the expectation that if the evaluation yields significant results, the applicant will have a strategic plan to scale up the project to full implementation via other funding sources.
Evaluation: Evaluation of programs involves the accurate and systematic collection of information for use to judge the merit or worth of an approach or program, often in comparison to some objective standard(s) or an alternate approach.
Dissemination: Dissemination of the outcomes and results of a research or innovation project are a critical element of the study plan. Since a major intention of The Children’s Trust is to contribute knowledge and evidence to the field, these contributions must be communicated widely to relevant professional, policy and public audiences by the project staff. Multiple methods of dissemination are expected, and these may include training sessions for various audiences, policy briefing papers, website postings, professional conference presentations, and/or scientific publication of results. Dissemination plans likely to impact systems issues will be highly valued.
Funded Research and Innovation Projects (as of October 2007)
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