An EMCF SIF investment will enable the Children's Home Society of North Carolina (CHSNC) to increase the number of youth aged 9-24 served by the Family Finding program from 41 last year, at an average cost per case of $10,000, to more than 500 by FY14, at an average cost of $8,250.  Wise Guys currently serves 2,400 youth, and CHS expects to expand the program to additional counties and reach 3,000 to 3,500 young people by FY14, at a cost per youth of approximately $300 per youth. These figures may be conservative. Even so, the growth in youth served that an EMCF SIF investment will make possible is dramatic, and so are the economies of scale and the savings in reduced public expenditures on foster care and teen births and families.

CHS also implements the Wise Guys teen pregnancy prevention curriculum, which is delivered in middle schools and community centers. Parental consent is required. Wise Guys staff also trains other trainers around the country to deliver the curriculum. A random assignment study by UNC Greensboro was completed in 2011 and published in the peer-reviewed Journal of School Health. It reported greater knowledge of sex and reproductive biology and STD transmission, and higher rates of desirable attitudes toward sex and appropriate sexual behavior.

Family Finding and Wise Guys are unique programs with the potential to produce transformative impacts, one for a population that is a priority for the EMCF SIF portfolio, youth in foster care, and the other in an outcome area that is a priority, reduction of teen pregnancy and other risky behaviors. Linking foster care youth to relatives or responsible adults is not widespread in the U.S. because of the time and resources it requires, but it shortens the period of time a young person is in foster care, and even program participants who remain in foster care benefit from a permanent, stable relationship with a caring adult. Wise Guys is unusual in focusing exclusively on young men rather than the young women on whom most teen pregnancy prevention programs concentrate, and a randomized controlled trial has confirmed its positive impact. An EMCF SIF investment will deliver high-quality programming to far greater numbers of vulnerable youth across the state, and the successful expansion of these programs may inspire organizations in other states to adopt them.

CHS senior staff is committed to proving the organization’s models through formal evaluation. It plans to select a comprehensive, agency-wide management information system by July 2011 and phase in it over six to 12 months.

States this SIF investment will support growth in: CHS seeks to expand its scope of services and footprint throughout North Carolina.

Number of youth this investment will serve: CHS is developing plans to increase, between 2012 and 2014, the number of youth ages 9-24 its Family Finding program serves by 350 to 500, an increase of 754 to 1,120 percent; and the number of youth its Wise Guys program serves by 600 to 1,100, an increase of 25 to 46 percent.

A scenario-based growth plan confirming or revising these projections will be available in June 2011.