This case study describes the scaling of Birth and Beyond (B&B), a parenting education and support intervention designed to reduce child maltreatment, by the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Sacramento (CAPC) and its partners. A countywide collaborative network of partners (called the Collaborative) developed B&B in 1998 to address child abuse and neglect in Sacramento County. The Collaborative consists of CAPC, which supports the administration and operations of B&B, and six partner organizations that implement B&B at nine local Family Resource Centers (FRCs) throughout Sacramento County.

Goals:

The case study provides insights into how CAPC is scaling B&B, as well as the factors that appear to facilitate and hinder scaling.

Research Questions:

The research questions are:

  • How did selected grantees define and operationalize scaling?

  • How did selected grantees scale evidence-based interventions?

Findings:

The case study found the following:

  • Funding availability facilitated or drove different types of scaling.

  • As the developer of the intervention, the Collaborative had considerable flexibility to adapt the intervention.

  • Structured resources aided scaling, and the scaling experience helped the Collaborative strengthen those resources.

  • External and internal evaluation influenced scaling.

  • The grantee faced constraints in conducting evaluation and continuous quality improvement.

  • Leader-led initiatives that were communicated through a structure that garnered input and support from frontline personnel facilitated scaling.

  • Recruiting and retaining frontline personnel from the communities in which they serve facilitated scaling.

For more information, download the case study.

Scaling Evidence-Based Models (SEBM) Project

The Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) initiated the Scaling Evidence-Based Models project to support the scaling of effective interventions. This case study is part of ORE’s Scaling Evidence-Based Models project, which includes additional resources that contribute to the study and application of scaling effective interventions. Below are additional scaling resources:

Guides:

  • Scaling an Intervention: Recommendations and Resources: The guide provides five key recommendations that will help funders like AmeriCorps, other government agencies, and philanthropic organizations identify which funded interventions are effective, enhance their knowledge base on scaling them, and pursue scaling.

  • How to Fully Describe an Intervention: This guide is intended to help practitioners to thoroughly describe their intervention and communicate the following to potential funders or stakeholders.

  • Build Organizational Capacity to Implement an Intervention: This guide will help practitioners prepare to implement their desired intervention through building organizational capacity, which involves establishing the organizational structure, workforce, resources, processes, and culture to enable success.

  • How to Structure Implementation Supports: This guide will help practitioners develop formal strategies (also known as implementation supports) to help consistently deliver an intervention as it was designed, which is especially helpful for organizations scaling an intervention and assessing implementation fidelity.

  • Making the Most of Data: This guide will help practitioners maximize the use of their intervention data to help their organizations improve program implementation and provide evidence to funders about effectiveness.

  • What Makes for a Well-Designed, Well-Implemented Impact Study: This guide is intended to help practitioners ensure that their evaluators produce high-quality impact studies.

  • Baseline Equivalence: What it is and Why it is Needed: This guide is designed to help practitioners and researchers work together to design an impact study with baseline equivalence and in turn learning how to determine if an impact study is likely to produce meaningful results.

  • Scaling Programs with Research Evidence and Effectiveness (SPREE): This article focuses on how the foundations can apply the SPREE process and provides insights into conditions that can help identify and support effective interventions that are ready to be scaled.

  • Scaling Evidence-Based Models: Document Review Rubrics: The guide is a two-part rubric for systematically reviewing documents that will help practitioners to identify the critical components of intervention effectiveness and describe plans for scaling the effective intervention.

Tools:

  • Scaling Checklists: Assessing Your Level of Evidence and Readiness (SCALER): This guide describes a framework that identifies how organizations can improve both their readiness to scale an intervention and the intervention’s readiness to be scaled, so that intervention services are best positioned to improve outcomes for a larger number of participants. Each checklist in the SCALER provides summary scores to reflect how ready an intervention and organization might be for scaling.

Reports:

Case Studies:

Full report

Further information

Program/Intervention
Scaling Birth & Beyond, Best Practice Dissemination
Implementing Organization
CNCS Office of Research and Evaluation Commissioned Report
Intermediary(s)

Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC)

Age(s) Studied
0-5 (Early childhood)
6-12 (Childhood)
Focus Population(s)/Community(s)
Schools
Rural
Suburban
Urban
Outcome Category
School readiness
K-12 success
Improving AmeriCorps
Study Type(s)
Case Study or Descriptive
Researcher/Evaluator
Mathematica
Published Year
2020
Study Site Location (State)
California