The Ready by 21® Approach

The Ready by 21 Approach brings together leaders from across a community and offers proven frameworks, tools and coaching to engage these leaders where they are — building on their current initiatives and resources — and equipping them to think and act differently to improve outcomes for children and youth.

It begins with a basic step that is nonetheless a challenge for most communities: bringing leaders together to develop a shared vision and a plan with specific, strategic Action Areas to target.

From there, Ready by 21 helps leaders:

  • Get Started - Engage stakeholders, develop committees, agree on how first action step.

  • Take Aim - Define elements and create an action agenda.

  • Take Stock - Select one to three indicators and gather baseline data.

  • Take Action - Identify gaps, select priority action areas and link action plans across problems.

  • Track Progress - Evaluate progress and adjust where necessary.

Ready by 21 engages leaders at four different levels, each with greater value and commitment—(1) introductory communications that are in-person, print and virtual, (2) short-term sessions that include workshops, institutes and trainings, (3) staffed peer groups of learning circles, networks and groups, and (4) intensive supports such as ongoing coaching and technical assistance.

Our tools and resources have been developed based on the knowledge from our partners, some of the top thinkers from across the country. Their technical assistance will ensure the success of your initiative. Find out how other communities are using Ready by 21 in our Leaders in Action section.

Ready by 21 recognizes that leaders and organizations typically focus on one or many priorities—we refer to these as Action Areas. Ready by 21 brings leaders together to develop a cross-cutting list of Action Areas for their change efforts. The approach encourages leaders to look across their collective efforts and keep broader goals in mind as they work on their individual areas of focus.

The Big Picture Approach

The Big Picture Approach encourages leaders to agree on a common language, a shared plan, and a new youth-centered way of looking at information.

Once they have learned this new way of thinking, they are able to take it into the basic steps of action planning – taking aim, taking stock, targeting action and tracking progress – but in a big picture way.

Leaders need to use the Big Picture Approach – sharpening the focus of the whole picture while setting priorities within it – to plan for and tackle each of the following Critical Tasks.

Set Big Picture Goals: clarify and connect the frameworks and the messages, the data and the metrics.

  • Define big picture messages and frameworks. Develop common language and common messages that connect to big picture organizing frameworks.
  • Develop or request youth-centered data and information that focus on children and youth and cuts across systems (including youth outcomes, participation, programs, resources, public opinion, public policies).
  • Define common metrics and track progress on measurable goals related to youth outcomes, community supports and leadership commitments.

Be Big Tent Partners: engage diverse stakeholders and link existing efforts to work together under one tent.

  • Understand and engage the range of stakeholders. Respect self-interest. Make sure partners are honest and articulate about their issues, goals, capacities, resources and constraints. And understand that, within the big picture, everyone doesn’t have to do everything.
  • Map and link the existing initiatives and coordinating structures. Understand the focus and force of the various moving trains and standing bodies concerned with children and youth.

Use Big Impact Strategies: integrate current and emerging strategies to make sure you realize your goals.

  • Improve and coordinate existing programs and supports across systems and settings. Fill gaps when needed.
  • Align existing policies and resources. Understand the policy and resource landscape. Make adjustments aggressively.
  • Engage youth and families as organizers, planners and advocates by ensuing ongoing opportunities for leadership and participation. Have strategies that reach all, not just a few.
  • Increase public, private and corporate demand by expecting it. Communicate a big picture vision and plan. Leverage your champions.

Create (or Strengthen) a Big Picture Coordinating Body

  • Identify a change making individual or entity with the capacity, motivation and authority to help add up and align these actions.

In every community and state across the country, you can find people tackling the ten discrete tasks listed under the Blueprint for Action. The Blueprint shows the relationship among these tasks. It helps leaders think about how their work fits together so that they can increase the collective horsepower of their efforts and get better returns on their investments.

The Big Picture Goals provide the critical focal point for the work. The Big Impact Strategies are interconnected and need to be focused on achieving the goals. The Big Tent Partners are the circle of actors coming together to leverage their efforts to make change happen. These partners need to take on shared responsibility for changing the odds for children and youth. They also need to support the Big Picture Coordinating Bodies asked to manage change.

Partners are depicted in a circle not only to signal shared responsibility but also to signal the need for containment. Perhaps the biggest challenge for Big Tent Partners is to keep their efforts inside the tent. A story that frequently plays out at the state or local level goes something like this: A coordinating group is established with a broad mandate to create a plan for children and youth, but the group is not really given the capacity or authority to do so. A crisis happens – an outbreak of gang violence, an increase in the dropout rate – and a separate task force is set up, charged with creating a plan and implementing strategies that are not connected to the efforts going on in the circle. Rather than bringing new energy, another competing effort is created, adding to the cacophony of messages and activity.

One of the primary indicators that people are thinking and acting differently is that they not only coordinate existing efforts but, when the need arises to address a new problem, they voluntarily bring it inside the tent to ensure that they build on efforts that are currently underway.

Just like communities and states are challenged to add up and align the Big Picture around youth outcomes and community supports, they are also challenged to map their collective efforts within the blueprint. Harnessing the energy inside the tent and focusing it towards the Big Picture Goals is the most effective way to improve returns on investment by increasing your horsepower for change.

The Ready by 21 Tool Kit includes diagnostic tools that help stakeholders assess the overall change horsepower of their state or community. Additional tools help them actually map their existing and emerging work (both "moving trains" and "standing bodies") and look for ways to leverage and align their efforts.