Systems Building
Intentional Inquiry works with partners to identify the various components - programs, policies, data - that are interrelated, yet fragmented, to create explicit infrastructure that fosters connections across components for increased impact.
Colorado's Gender-Based Violence Prevention Agenda
After individual interviews about hopes and concerns, Intentional Inquiry facilitated eight half-day meetings with three state agency and two statewide coalition partners to develop a shared agenda for gender-based violence prevention. Much mistrust had to be broken down in order to develop a shared vision, mission, framework, values, and guiding principles. The collective is now meeting bi-monthly to proactively collaborate on five opportunities they identified as essential, with an explicit focus on breaking down systems barriers to queer, transgender, black, indigenous, and people of color from accessing resources.
Intentional Inquiry wrote a successful grant proposal on behalf of the Colorado Department of Education to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for $10 million over 5 years. Colorado was one of twenty states to receive this grant. The goal of the grant was to increase awareness of youth mental health issues and to build capacity and infrastructure for a school-based behavioral health system.
Intentional Inquiry supported Project AWARE's three demonstration school district partners in building their individualized school-based behavioral health systems. We provided technical assistance in designing effective referral systems that support school-community-family communication in addition to collecting data to drive decisions about prevention programming, partnerships, and supports. The systems building within each of these districts has drastically increased the number of students receiving mental health services within and outside the school setting in addition to increasing the focus on school climate, social emotional learning, and suicide prevention.
Colorado Youth Development Team (CYDT)
In 2008, with funding from the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, Intentional Inquiry launched CYDT by connecting youth and adult leaders of positive youth development (PYD) from across the state. With CYDT leaders, Intentional Inquiry designed an action plan based on a strengths and needs assessment and environmental scan to promote PYD through creating a system for communication, policy advocacy, training, evaluation, and funding. Three years after CYDT's initial launch, Colorado 9to25, a network of youth and organization leaders, was formed to align resources and supports for youth ages 9 to 25. This network supported the Colorado State Youth Development Plan as mandated by HB 13-1239.