National report: How are Getting Ahead graduates doing?

In the first 145 days, 43% of graduates reduced reliance on benefits!

A growing number of Getting Ahead (GA) sites are using CharityTracker to celebrate the changes made by GA grads. Getting Ahead sites from 10 states reported on a total of 623 graduates.

To arrive at a financial return on investment, GA grads must stabilize their lives in order to build resources. The financial return comes later. This is hard work on the part of GA grads and the communities that support them. Congratulations to you all!

Some things we are learning about the journey out of poverty:

About stability: The things a person has direct control over—like one’s time horizon, stress management, and social connections—are generally the first to grow. The less control, the more time it takes to see a change.
About resources: Direct control is the key there too. The use of language, social capital, motivation, relationships, and the use of hidden rules will generally change more quickly than the others.

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About the Author: Philip DeVol

Phil DeVol is an international consultant who has been working with aha! Process since 1997. He used aha! Process concepts to make institutional changes at the addiction treatment center where he was the executive director for 19 years. During this time he also co-wrote Bridges Out of Poverty with Ruby Payne and Terie Dreussi-Smith. His book Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-by-World is being used to engage people in poverty in the work of building communities where everyone can live well. It worked so well that DeVol used it as a basis for a prison reentry model called Getting Ahead while Getting Out. He works with community leaders to help them move quickly from an attraction to application of Bridges concepts. Getting Ahead and Bridges are being used in hundreds of communities in the U.S., as well as a number of sites in Canada, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. His books have been translated into Spanish, Slovak, and Czech.