Bridge Builders
Academic Definition: A group composed of individuals who serve as interlinking communication roles to coordinate resources, identify cross-functional issues, and ensure organizational unity.
NC Definition: A specialized group acting as an intermediary or bridge between various committees, teams, and external partners.
What is the Liaison Group?
A “deep and enduring emotional bond” between child and caregiver, predictive of later social and emotional outcomes.
What is Attachment?
The federal Cabinet department charged with protecting health and providing human services.
What is the Department of Health and Human Services?
The long-term effect of a program or policy on individuals or communities, often measured in societal changes.
What is Impact?
Instead of “stakeholder,” this person-first term centers collaboration and partnership.
What is Community partner?
Academic Definition: A time-limited advisory body charged with setting project aims, developing and monitoring implementation plans, linking objectives to broader organizational goals, and providing ongoing endorsement to the accountable authority.
NC Definition: A collection of thought leaders from across systems and networks that convenes monthly to guide thought leadership, identify objective, revise implementation, and advise on targets of TA.
What is the Steering Committe?
These “potentially traumatic events” before age 18 including abuse or household dysfunction are linked to long-term health and social outcomes.
What are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)?
A public announcement inviting applicants to apply for a specific federal grant.
What is a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)?
A systematic process, formative or summative, used to assess whether goals have been achieved.
What is Evaluation?
Replace “hard to reach” with this phrase that centers systemic exclusion rather than individual blame.
What is Historically Underserved?
Academic Definition: A group of partners that oversees, attends to, and is accountable for facilitating key activities in the selection, implementation, and continuous improvement of an intervention.
NC Definition: A group of two or more individuals from the site who operationalize and carry out the strategies and tactics from the implementation plan.
What are Implementation Teams?
This term describes firsthand, personal knowledge gained through direct involvement with child welfare or mental health challenges.
What is Lived Experience?
This grant mechanism involves substantial federal involvement in planning and execution, more than a typical block grant.
What is a Cooperative Agreement?
A research method collecting quantitative or qualitative information via structured questions at one point or over time.
What is a Survey?
Instead of “client or case,” use this person-first alternative.
What is Child/Youth, Family, Person We Serve?
Academic Definition: A qualitative data-collection method in which a small, purposively selected set of participants discuss specific topics under a facilitator’s guidance, using group dynamics to elicit in-depth perspectives, language, and insights.
NC Definition: A smaller, targeted set of partners convened to gather in-depth qualitative feedback on specific initiatives, policies, or practices.
What are Focus Groups?
SAMHSA’s term for the connection between one’s behaviors like ADHD or substance use and overall physical and psychological well-being.
What is Behavioral Health?
The federal representative who oversees grant compliance, technical performance, and reporting requirements.
Who is the Federal Project Officer (FPO)?
A specific, measurable variable (e.g., enrollees) that tracks progress toward program objectives.
What is an Indicator?
Rather than “boots on the ground,” call it this to avoid militaristic language.
What is staff on‐site?
Academic Definition: Dedicated evaluation teams that systematically collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data to assess the effects of programs or initiatives, measure outcomes, and inform decisions about scaling or adjusting strategies.
NC Definition: A team formed specifically to monitor and evaluate measurable outcomes of a learning community’s initiatives.
What are Impact Groups?
An approach that “realizes the widespread impact of trauma” and integrates that knowledge into policies, procedures, and practices.
What is Trauma-Informed Care?
The negotiated percentage used to allocate shared administrative costs to grant budgets.
What is the Indirect Rate?
Non-numerical data, often from interviews or focus groups, used to capture experiences and perceptions.
What is Qualitative Data?
Instead of labeling an area a “service desert,” use this term to highlight systemic inequities.
What is a systemically under‐resourced area?