Emerging Civic Leaders Fellowship concludes inaugural year 

For the hundreds of organizations that serve Chicago's youth, opportunities are missed every day because data are not shared. 

Imagine a boy in high school who stops coming to class. A teacher from the school calls his home, but his parents are at work and do not pick up. However, the boy is still attending a sports program at his local YMCA, though his teachers do not know this. If the adult in charge of the sports program knew that the boy had stopped attending school, could that adult intervene to get the boy back on track?

A year ago, schools and other youth-serving organizations did not share information on the children they served. Efforts to share student information had been stymied by legal challenges and other obstacles. Today, for the first time, Chicago Public Schools and eight nonprofit organizations are piloting an effort to share real-time data (with a guardian's consent) between schools and youth-serving organizations. These nonprofit organizations will receive daily updates on student attendance, grades, and many other kinds of data, allowing them to flag potential problems and intervene - and to better understand whether interventions are working and adjust accordingly.

Pro bono lawyers from DLA Piper analyzed other cities that had launched similar collaborations. Having shown that it was possible to share student data, they drafted legal agreements to launch the pilot. Meanwhile, pro bono consultants from McKinsey & Company and Deloitte LLP identified twelve central use cases to specify the data that were truly critical to share. 

The project was part of Thrive Chicago, a collective impact initiative that Civic Consulting Alliance has supported over the past year. This data-sharing effort, and other collaborations facilitated through Thrive, are increasing the number of Chicago youth who graduate from high school, earn credentials of economic value, and go on to successful careers.

"It has been incredible to work on a project that will help more kids stay in school, graduate on time, and lead successful lives," said Katie Jahnke Dale, Associate at DLA Piper LLP. "Thrive is changing the way that youth-serving organizations and government work to build a better future for our youth."

For more information, please contact Brian Battle.

What happens when one of the largest public hospital systems in the country starts getting paid to keep patients healthy, not just to respond to the sick? The Affordable Care Act required the Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS) to adjust to this new funding paradigm. To meet this challenge, CCHHS used federal funding to bring healthcare coverage to low-income Cook County residents. CCHHS then enrolled more than 95,000 adults in its new health plan (CountyCare) and built an extensive network of healthcare providers to serve them. 

Despite this progress, hard decisions remained about where to focus and how to adjust to new funding pressures. In 2014, a team of CCHHS executives looked at different populations, financial scenarios, external perspectives, and the best models across the country. 

Civic Consulting Alliance, along with partners from Strategy&, Deloitte LLP, The PrivateBank, and University of Illinois at Chicago, convened a series of monthly workshops with the CCHHS leadership team to drive important decisions for the future of the system.

"These deliberations played a substantial role in organizational priorities articulated in our fiscal year 2015 budget," said CCHHS CEO Dr. John Jay Shannon. "We commit as an institution to focusing on action to bring [Civic Consulting Alliance's] work with us to life."

For more information, please contact Asheley Van Ness.