BUILD INITIATIVE EVALUATION
Following are Build Initiative's annual national evaluation essays written by the Child and Family Policy Center. They discuss the initiative's progess and they also explore and provide insight into a variety of aspects of systems development.
The First Seven Years: The BUILD Initiative and Early Childhood Systems Development, 2002 to 2009 
Charlie Bruner's essay examines the impact of BUILD's systems building work in states since its inception in 2002. Four states' case studies are provided below. October 2009
Ohio , Minnesota , New Jersey
Laboratories of Systems Change: Build’s Emerging Role in Knowledge Development 
The role of Build at a national level in knowledge building is the topic of Charles Bruner and Michelle Stover Wright’s July 2007 evaluation essay. The essay describes how Build’s Learning Community of states and its collaborations with other national consultants and initiatives have helped to identify specific areas where further knowledge development is needed, where Build has taken a leadership role in this work and been able to bring key leaders together to begin to tackle emerging issues. The essay focuses on work in the following areas:
- Developing approaches to governance that recognize stages of cross-system planning, governance and management and the needs for both state and community-level structures;
- Developing a common systems framework across health, early care and education, family support, and special needs;
- Constructing an evaluation and self-assessment framework appropriate for early childhood systems-building work; and
- Integrating a focus on ethnicity, language, and culture into early learning systems-building discussions and strategies.
Healthy and Ready: Build States and the Build Initiative
Developed by Charles Bruner and Michelle Stover Wright, this paper is the fourth year evaluation overview of Build's work. It examines the progress that Build states have made in developing early childhood systems, with actions taken across health, family support, and children’s social and emotional development as well as early care and education.
Build and its Theories of Change: Gaining Traction and Impact in the States
Charles Bruner and Michelle Stover Wright’s Third year evaluation essay describes progress made in the initial grantee states and the development of Build’s three-part Theory of Change, which lays out Build’s underlying assumptions and offers a framework for developing ways to test and measure progress.
SUPPORT MATERIALS
Executive Summary
Full report
Build at 2 1/2: An Evaluation Essay
The March 2005 national evaluation essay describes the general growth in Build thinking and action from the inception of the initiative to the end of 2004. It puts Build work in the context of a changing society and the implications of those changes to early learning. The work of Build is unfolding, and Build states are learning and expanding their visions as they go forward. In many respects, Build as an initiative has moved from its birth into toddler hood in the development of a true early learning system that can support all children's growth and development. "Built at 2 1/2” is an essay that describes the challenges and opportunities facing both states and the nation in this important work.
Build First Year Evaluation Executive Summary
This overview of the Build Initiative's first year includes initial observations and lessons learned and provide a synopsis of the longer case studies that describe activities and progress in the Build grantee states.
