History and Mission Statement

The Beginning

In 2004, The Children's Trust of Miami-Dade County invited organizations to develop and implement a system of quality improvement to support their funded out-of-school (OOS) programs. Through discussions with local OOS providers and national researchers in learning and childcare, Project RISE was created.

Since then, Project RISE has expanded its services to include agencies serving K-12 in Youth Development (YD) programs.

Mission

Project RISE (Research, Inspiration, Support, & Evaluation) is a Trust-funded quality improvement initiative designed to enhance the quality of Trust-Funded youth development programs for school-age youths in Miami-Dade County. Our mission, through evaluation and training, is to raise the quality of care in ways that improve children's health and safety, promote academic success, and enhance their social and emotional development.

FRESH:  RISE Guiding Principles

Project RISE has five underlying principles to complete its mission:

Feedback: Provide feedback on program-level and participant-level outcomes to help agencies and the youth they serve to succeed.

Relationships: View the training and evaluation process as a marathon, not a sprint. Build relationships and trust through people. Quality takes time.

Effort: Simplify, and thus reduce, the effort needed to participate in outcome evaluation and program improvement by providing support and training. Allow agencies to focus on what they do best: creating opportunities for learning and recreation for youth.

Support: Support programs before using outcome evaluation to inform funding decisions. Provide incentives to expand what works and change what does not.

High-Level Coordination: Increase high-level coordination between major funding and policy-making entities in Miami-Dade County to reduce “red tape.”