News & Blog

We're sharing what we learn as we go. Read our latest blogs along with reports, new and old, to find out how we're working with partners through community-centered design and Family-Centered Coaching.

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Mastering the Art of Effective Feedback with a Coaching Approach: For Human Service Professionals

By Rebecca Roebber | March 5, 2024

Feedback built on a Coaching Approach: At the foundation of a coaching approach is a coaching mindset, rooted in curiosity, non judgment, and a genuine desire to support others, acknowledging the resourcefulness and capabilities from every person over our own perceptions or opinions. By cultivating a coaching approach and culture of coaching within organizations,  individuals are empowered to self reflect, own decisions and grow.  Creating a safe space of effective feedback is a key element in establishing a culture of coaching, because it encourages individual and organizational growth. The Power of Feedback through the Coaching …

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Coaching is Transformational for People Experiencing Poverty

By Rebecca Roebber | February 2, 2024

Families can find navigating support for poverty as frustrating as poverty itself.  It adds pressure, stress and challenges that can deter people from seeking services all together. Practitioners working with these families can have tight constraints to the support they can offer which can feel draining and demoralizing. Family-Centered Coaching (FCC) was designed a as holistic approach to address these collective problems. It is a set of strategies, tools, and resources designed to strengthen the way human service providers engage with families and community partners. Organizations that have received training in FCC report a greater, more …

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Leaders in Family-Centered Coaching: MS Cohort Training Scholarships

By Rachel Brooks | January 8, 2024

The Prosperity Agenda is excited to announce the launch of our Family-Centered Coaching (FCC) Intensive Training Cohort and scholarship opportunities. This is a unique offering for human service organizations based in Mississippi who are committed to empowering families. Through a grant from W.K. Kellogg Foundation, our Leaders in Family-Centered Coaching program will provide scholarships for staff at five eligible organizations in Mississippi to attend this intensive training. About Family-Centered Coaching FCC is a set of strategies, tools, and resources that help human service organizations reinvent how they engage with, and help, families that are experiencing …

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Coaching Spotlight: Using Money Mindset Cards in Monthly Workshop

By Rachel Brooks | February 3, 2023

John McKenney is the Financial Education Coordinator for a government agency in Washington State. He provides a range of financial education workshops free of charge to organizations, schools, and groups in Washington State. He’s a partner and/or board member to governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, private organizations, educational service districts and school districts across the state, all with the underlying goal of providing financial education services to everyone, but with a focus on families, communities, and specific groups of people who have experienced generations of poverty or who have been historically marginalized and discriminated against. I …

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Innovative Approaches to Family-Centered Coaching: Six Partner Experiences

By Rachel Brooks | August 12, 2021

Family-Centered Coaching is not a one-size-fits-approach. As we’ve worked with organizations around the country we’ve been honored to see each live into the approach in their own way. Through a culture of learning, coaches and their leadership have built the relationships and continuous improvement to center programs on the services that families need and deserve. Through the leadership and learning we facilitate, we often hear from our partners how they are innovating. We interviewed staff at six organizations to capture how each are continuing to develop their practice of coaching and build coaching teams and culture. As you …

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Community-Centered Design for Racial Equity in New Orleans

By Rachel Brooks | May 1, 2021

In February 2020, at a momentous time globally, we launched the long-planned Family-Centered Coaching for Racial Equity Project in partnership with W.K. Kellogg Foundation and eight organizations committed to advancing racial equity. We are guided by community members and stakeholders in each step of our process. Read more about how we first launched our working group, mapped local stakeholders, and created the New Orleans Community Insight Report. Our next step was to facilitate a design process with a team of community members and stakeholders. Facilitating a Community-Centered Design Process Design sessions were held online over four meetings in April and …

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Community Insights on Racial Equity in New Orleans

By Rachel Brooks | April 29, 2021
New Orleans Skyline

Last February we launched the Family-Centered Coaching for Racial Equity Project in partnership with W.K. Kellogg Foundation and eight organizations committed to advancing racial equity.  We are guided by community members and stakeholders in each step of our process. This details how we created the New Orleans Community Insight Report and what we plan to do next.  To center our engagement in local experience and expertise, we began by launching Family-Centered Coaching for Racial Equity Working Groups in both Mississippi and New Orleans. In New Orleans, this includes eight stakeholders from four local organizations–The City …

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We’re Partnering for an Equitable Recovery: Supporting Employers to Hire People with Conviction Histories

By Rachel Brooks | April 28, 2021

At The Prosperity Agenda, we approach quality jobs by working on both sides of the labor market; especially with employers to increase access to quality jobs, create pathways to wage growth, and invite employees to use their full set of talents at work. Our latest partnership, The Inclusive Recovery Project, seeks to broadly build employment opportunities for the 70 million Americans who have a conviction history. The unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated talent (FIT) was 60 percent in the nation’s last recession. Our goal is to ensure that post-pandemic economic recovery plans are equitable.  “We …

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Announcing the Family-Centered Coaching for Racial Equity Project

By Rachel Brooks | November 11, 2020
Train to Jackson

Government-sponsored assistance programs have generally addressed poverty largely by “bringing discipline to the lives of the poor” rather than actually seeking to eradicate it. Programs like food and housing assistance are often conditional based on “good behavior.” This is especially prevalent, and problematic, for families in communities of color. To move from poverty to prosperity, we must transform how we connect, relate, and learn from each other. We must acknowledge that these systems need to change rather than individuals. The Family-Centered Coaching for Racial Equity Project uses a systems lens and community-led design process to …

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Emerging Research: Optimizing Coaching for Family Experience at GST Michigan Works

By Rachel Brooks | October 13, 2020

Beginning in 2016, GST Michigan Works and SEMCA Michigan Works participated in research with ABT Associates, Mathematica, and the Office of the Administration for Families and Services to understand more about the impact and implementation of a coaching approach for people receiving cash assistance. The Prosperity Agenda trained selected staff at both agencies on an approach that was called Michigan Goal Progress Success (MI-GPS), which combined the Career & Life Coaching model (see report below) we developed and some supplementary tools, like the Bridge of Strength. Following the the research, we returned to SEMCA and …

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