Advancing Family Economic Mobility in Mississippi Through a Peer-to-Peer Statewide Learning Network
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Key Findings
- Planning and facilitating meetings required the facilitators to establish trust with MALN members to develop a safe meeting culture; facilitators worked with members to develop a shared future state with a road map for how to get there
- Members of the MALN were motivated to attend meetings to build relationships with other leaders outside times of crisis, to align resources with other agencies, and to share and learn from each other to improve economic outcomes for Mississippians
- MALN members reported that an open and honest meeting culture and meeting in person promoted sharing and learning with their peers
- Members reported making progress on the MALN roadmap, with the most progress in the generative leadership priority area; five out of six survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that participating in the MALN increased their agency’s collaboration with at least one other MALN agency outside of MALN meetings
Mathematica conducted a process evaluation of a statewide learning community in Mississippi, called the Mississippi Action Learning Network (MALN) where Mississippi state leaders share and learn best practices, innovations, and solutions for improving economic mobility. The MALN is facilitated by two American Public Human Services (APHSA) staff and aims to bring together public and private leaders for cross-agency peer learning to advance economic mobility for families in Mississippi.
This brief describes the activities of the MALN from May 2022 to December 2023 and includes takeaways related to how facilitators planned and facilitated meetings, meeting attendance, how sharing and learning occurred, what participants learned and collaboration examples, and progress the group made towards its goals. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to advance family economic mobility for all Mississippians by aligning public and private leaders' values and priorities to equitably change the human services system.
“Four years ago, when I first came on board as executive director [at my agency], [my agency] was operating solely in its own sphere, its own silo. And we have made significant strides developing relationships with all of our sister agencies and at least having regular conversations with them.” - MALN member
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