Pilot Framework
A prevention-focused, cross-system coordination pilot designed to improve measurable outcomes for Oklahoma children and families.
What This Pilot Is
Oklahoma Child Wellbeing is a prevention-focused child wellbeing accountability pilot. It explores how early warning indicators, cross-system coordination, and measurable outcomes can strengthen long-term results for children and families before crisis occurs.
The pilot operates at the intersection of education, health, behavioral health, housing, child welfare, public safety, and community services. Its goal is to demonstrate that coordinated, data-informed prevention can reduce the frequency and severity of crises that affect Oklahoma children.
What This Pilot Is Not
- Not a surveillance system or mass data collection effort
- Not a tool for individual-level tracking without consent and governance
- Not a replacement for existing agency authority or case management
- Not an advocacy campaign or awareness-only initiative
- Not a short-term project without a path to sustained implementation
Pilot Phases
Phased Implementation Approach
The pilot follows a phased approach designed to build credibility, demonstrate value, and scale responsibly.
Phase 1
Foundation & Framework
Establish the conceptual framework, identify early warning indicators, map system authorities, and build the accountability model. Define data governance principles and privacy protections.
Phase 2
Demonstration & Validation
Deploy demonstration dashboards using illustrative data. Engage stakeholders across systems to validate the approach, refine indicators, and test coordination pathways in the Tulsa pilot area.
Phase 3
Coordinated Implementation
Formalize data-sharing agreements. Connect to live data sources with appropriate governance. Begin measuring real coordination outcomes and tracking system responsiveness.
Phase 4
Expansion & Sustainability
Expand geographic scope based on demonstrated results. Develop sustainable funding models. Integrate with state-level systems and long-term planning infrastructure.
Geographic Focus Strategy
The pilot begins in Tulsa, Oklahoma, leveraging existing community relationships, partner networks, and local data infrastructure. Tulsa provides a manageable geographic scope for demonstrating cross-system coordination before scaling to additional Oklahoma communities.
A place-based approach allows the pilot to build trust with local stakeholders, understand community-specific dynamics, and develop replicable processes that can adapt to other regions.
Cross-System Coordination Philosophy
Traditional systems operate within defined boundaries: education tracks students, healthcare tracks patients, child welfare tracks cases. Each system may identify risk indicators, but few systems share visibility across boundaries in ways that enable coordinated prevention.
Oklahoma Child Wellbeing proposes a coordination layer that connects early warning indicators across systems to the authorities responsible for action. This is not about replacing individual system responsibilities. It is about ensuring that when indicators worsen across multiple systems, the response is coordinated rather than fragmented.
Prevention-First Model
Most child-serving systems are structured to respond after crisis. The prevention-first model shifts investment and attention upstream, focusing on early warning indicators that predict future crisis and creating accountability for intervention before harm escalates.
Prevention is not only more humane. It is more cost-effective, more scalable, and more likely to produce durable improvements in child and family outcomes.
Public Health Framing
Oklahoma Child Wellbeing adopts a public health approach to child wellbeing: population-level surveillance, early identification of risk, coordinated intervention, and continuous measurement of outcomes.
This framing positions child wellbeing as a community health issue rather than solely an individual service delivery problem, aligning with modern approaches to population health and social determinants of health.
Data Governance Principles
- All data sharing must comply with HIPAA, FERPA, and applicable state and federal law
- Aggregate and de-identified data is prioritized over individual-level data wherever possible
- Data governance structures must include community representation and oversight
- Privacy protections must be built into system design, not added after the fact
- Transparency about what data is collected, how it is used, and who has access
- Regular auditing and review of data practices and governance structures
Safe and Ethical Information Sharing
Effective prevention requires some degree of information sharing across system boundaries. Oklahoma Child Wellbeing is committed to demonstrating that this sharing can happen lawfully, ethically, and with strong protections for families and children.
The pilot explores safe harbor concepts, tiered access models, aggregate indicator sharing, and structured coordination protocols that enable systems to act on shared risk indicators without compromising individual privacy.
Measurable Outcomes Approach
The pilot is structured around measurable outcomes at every level. Success is not defined by the volume of data collected or reports generated. Success is defined by whether coordination improves, whether intervention happens earlier, and whether outcomes for children and families demonstrably improve over time.
- Are early warning indicators identified before crisis occurs?
- Is responsibility for response clearly assigned?
- Did coordinated action take place?
- Did outcomes improve as a result?
- Are improvements sustained over time?
Long-term, Oklahoma Child Wellbeing aims to demonstrate a replicable model for prevention-focused child wellbeing infrastructure that can inform policy, attract investment, and improve measurable outcomes at the community and state level. This framework is grounded in public health principles, data governance best practices, and privacy-protected cross-system coordination designed to strengthen early warning indicators and outcome ownership across responsible systems.