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Changing systems by changing individuals: the incubation approach to systems change
Author(s) -
Staggs Susan L.,
White Marlita L.,
Schewe Paul A.,
Davis Erica B.,
Dill Ebony M.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-007-9103-6
Subject(s) - health psychology , behavior change , nature versus nurture , enforcement , public relations , business , law enforcement , key (lock) , public health , psychology , engineering , computer security , political science , medicine , computer science , social psychology , nursing , law , sociology , anthropology
This article describes and evaluates the implementation of an innovative approach to systems change, the incubation approach, which was developed on a systems change project designed to increase the capacity of multiple systems (e.g., law enforcement, child protection, domestic violence, mental health, early education) to respond to children's exposure to violence. The incubation approach encourages change agents to collaborate with project staff to gently nurture, or “incubate,” feasible and warranted change in target systems. Project staff gain concrete commitment from motivated and accessible change agents and collaborate with those agents to implement change actions. This approach works well with committed, executive‐level change agents in target systems, with stable systems that have low turnover and well‐integrated subsystems, and when seed funds are provided to key organizations.