Hundreds of attendees from across the country gathered in Atlanta, Georgia for the 2025 Cradle to Career Network Convening hosted by national partner, StriveTogether. Promise Partnership Utah is one of about 70 communities across 30 states in the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network—all are aligning systems to support children and families throughout their lives.
The annual convening is an opportunity for leaders from these place-based partnerships to connect, learn, and create change. This year’s convening theme, “4 Million Futures: Pathways to Opportunity,” refers to the network’s goal to put 4 million youth on a path to economic mobility by improving cradle-to-career outcomes such as early grade reading, middle grade math, high school graduation, and more. As part of this equation, Promise Partnership Utah seeks to put 22,500 students on the path to economic mobility by 2029.
In September 2022, Promise Partnership Utah became the first partnership in the network to achieve the Systems Transformation designation and has recertified every year. This is the highest designation awarded by StriveTogether; signifying we are doing some of the most innovative work in the country to change systems and improve outcomes for youth and families.
Several Promise Partners and Promise Partnership Utah backbone staff attended the convening and shared presentations highlighting the collaborative work they’re doing. Read summaries and main takeaways from these presentations below:
Promise Baby & You: Empowering Caregivers and Creating Community
Kelly Noorda, Lead Partnership Director on the Promise Partnership Utah backbone team, moderated a panel titled “Promise Baby & You: Empowering Caregivers and Creating Community.” The panel featured Promise South Salt Lake Deputy Director, Edward Lopez, Davis Community Learning Center Coordinator, Val Lopez, and a parent who completed the Promise Baby & You program.
The panelists shared insights from the first year of the Promise Baby & You program, a nine-week workshop series designed to provide parents and caregivers of children ages 0-3 with skills to support their child’s social, emotional, and developmental needs. In the first year of the program, seven total cohorts across two communities served 83 families, with one more cohort currently in progress. Panelists emphasized the importance of building family connections, creating networks, and fostering community partnerships for lasting success.
“Promise Baby & You strengthens the earliest stage of the cradle-to-career pipeline by supporting families with tools, knowledge, and confidence to nurture their child’s development,” Noorda said. “By improving kindergarten readiness and early literacy we help ensure more children enter school on track, building a strong foundation for future learning and ultimately, economic mobility.”
Equity in Practice: Lessons from a cohort-based model for centering racial equity through data integration
Caitlin Schneider, Senior Partnership Director on the Promise Partnership Utah backbone team, delivered a presentation titled “Equity in Practice: Lessons from a cohort-based model for centering racial equity through data integration.” Schneider presented alongside partners from Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP), Baltimore’s Promise, and Saint Paul Promise (two other place-based partnerships in the StriveTogether Cradle to Career network) in a joint panel.
The panelists shared challenges, insights, and progress from the Equity in Practice Learning Community (EiPLC), a cohort-based learning community designed to support data integration efforts and build more equitable and sustainable data practices. Panelists discussed best practices for centering racial equity throughout data integration and engaging community members in stages of the data lifecycle.
“By harnessing our collective data assets and building on our existing work as community partners, we believe we can have more tools and resources to ensure that all students in South Salt Lake and Millcreek graduate from high school on a career path and have their basic needs met which will set them on a path to economic mobility,” Schneider said. “We want to do this through creating data infrastructure that shares power and knowledge with communities.”
About StriveTogether
StriveTogether is a national network of community partnerships that bring together neighbors, including youth and families, nonprofits, businesses, schools and more, to work toward a future where youth can thrive in their communities. Cradle to Career Network members change the way their communities work together by building connections, sharing resources and using data to put more young people on a path to economic mobility.
Written by Jenna Fischer, Content Strategist
