Begin with a focused Randolph County pilot.
FAF is preparing a one-year pilot in Randolph County, West Virginia. The current planning assumption is approximately 100 families or complex cases.
The pilot would test whether families receive clearer next steps, stronger follow-through, and better access to existing help when several organizations or services are involved. It would also help identify where existing pathways work well, where families repeatedly get stuck, and whether FAF makes a meaningful difference.
The pilot remains subject to approved funding, staffing, operational readiness, appropriate safeguards, and final program design. Family intake is not yet open.
Families may face serious barriers.
The cause cannot be assumed.
Families may experience unresolved needs involving education, disability, behavioral health, child welfare, transportation, housing, food access, healthcare, benefits, accessibility, and other systems. Those experiences deserve careful attention.
The existence of a difficult outcome does not by itself prove that a program failed, that coordination was absent, or that FAF would have changed the result. The pilot should identify what happened in each pathway before drawing broader conclusions.
Start With Existing Evidence
Use current, credible sources and learn how existing programs, professionals, and pathways already operate before describing a problem or proposing a response.
Separate Conditions From FAF Results
Community conditions may help define the pilot question. They must not be presented as outcomes produced—or prevented—by FAF.
Classify Every Conclusion
Distinguish established facts, planning assumptions, pilot hypotheses, observed results, verified outcomes, and modeled benefits.
One county. One disciplined test. No predetermined conclusion.
FAF is preparing an initial Randolph County pilot with a current planning assumption of approximately 100 families or complex cases during Year 1.
Actual enrollment and operations remain subject to approved funding, staffing, operational readiness, final program design, appropriate safeguards, and the ability to conduct the work responsibly.
The Pilot Is Being Designed to Test
- How existing pathways and ownership currently work
- Whether important priority needs remain unresolved across program boundaries
- Where a pathway succeeds, stalls, or ends
- Whether referral leads to access and actual service receipt
- Whether the priority need is resolved
- Whether the desired outcome is achieved and sustained
- Whether FAF contributes material resolution value
- Where FAF adds no material value
- Whether FAF Connect supports a reliable resolution record
- Which barriers or successful pathways recur
- Whether privacy, consent, governance, training, and supervision controls are workable
Approximately 100
Families or complex cases in the current Year 1 planning assumption
1
County — the initial geographic focus
1
Year — the initial pilot learning period
Planning assumptions only — not funded, guaranteed, or committed deliverables
Activity is not the same as progress.
The pilot would ask a few plain questions about each situation:
- Did the family understand the next step?
- Was responsibility for that step clear?
- Did the family reach the intended service?
- Was the family’s most important need addressed?
- Did the problem return?
- Did FAF make a meaningful difference?
- Where did the existing pathway already work without FAF?
- What recurring barriers should community leaders understand?
Existing Pathway
- Programs and professionals already involved
- What each organization is responsible for
- Actions, decisions, or services already attempted
- Where the existing pathway worked
Whether the Family Reached the Service
- Resource identified
- Referral made and accepted
- Eligibility confirmed
- Service scheduled and actually received
Resolution and Outcome
- Whether the most important need was addressed
- Whether the desired outcome was achieved
- Whether the outcome lasted
- What remained unresolved and why
FAF Contribution
- What FAF did in the pathway
- Whether FAF made a meaningful difference in helping the family move forward
- Where FAF made no meaningful difference
- Alternative explanations for observed improvement
Family Experience
- Whether priorities and choices remained visible
- Whether next steps and responsibilities were clear
- Whether the process reduced or increased the family’s effort
- Whether the person or family felt heard and respected
Recurring Learning
- Successful existing pathways
- Repeated unresolved barrier types
- Reopened or recurring needs
- Patterns that may warrant further examination
A credible pilot should be willing to produce an inconvenient answer.
The first year should determine whether the proposed model is useful, responsible, workable, and capable of producing trustworthy evidence—including evidence that FAF was unnecessary in some cases.
Did existing organizations appropriately resolve the priority without material FAF involvement?
When a pathway stalled, did FAF help identify a legitimate and useful next action?
Did the record distinguish referral, acceptance, eligibility, service receipt, resolution, and sustained outcome?
Can FAF's contribution be separated from the work of families, providers, programs, and other factors?
Does the evidence support continuing, changing, expanding, limiting, or reconsidering the model?
A pilot succeeds when it produces honest learning—not when every result supports the original idea.
FAF should not be the only organization evaluating FAF.
Subject to funding, scope, and final pilot design, FAF intends to pursue appropriate independent evaluation or external review. The purpose would be to test the quality of the measures, data, analysis, conclusions, and recommendations—not to validate a predetermined result.
External Review Could Examine
- Whether measures are clearly and consistently defined
- Whether data collection is reliable and proportionate
- Whether referral is distinguished from access, receipt, resolution, and sustained outcome
- Whether FAF's contribution is distinguished from causation
- Whether cases in which FAF added no material value are documented
- Whether conclusions and recommendations are supported by the evidence
- Whether unintended consequences or burdens are identified
- What should change before any continuation or expansion
Independent evaluation remains a proposed pilot safeguard. The evaluator, methodology, scope, funding, access, and reporting requirements have not yet been finalized and should not be described as secured.
Public trust depends on saying only what the evidence supports.
FAF May Report When Verified
- Actual families or cases served
- Documented family-defined priorities
- Existing organizations and pathways involved
- Pathway stages actually reached
- Verified service receipt
- Verified resolution and sustained outcomes
- Cases where FAF added material value
- Cases where FAF added no material value
- De-identified recurring barriers or successful pathways
- Pilot limitations and lessons
FAF Must Not Claim Without Evidence
- That every family received the needed service
- That a referral produced access or resolution
- That observed improvement was caused by FAF
- That FAF prevented a placement, crisis, or other event
- That FAF produced specific savings or realized ROI
- That FAF Connect guarantees access or outcomes
- That a recurring pattern proves a statewide system failure
- That the pilot establishes statewide or national effectiveness
- That modeled benefits are verified results
- That the pilot was successful before results are evaluated
One experience may reveal a barrier.
Repeated evidence may reveal a pattern.
An individual experience should first be understood in its own context. FAF should document the priority, existing ownership, attempted pathway, unresolved barrier, appropriate action, and verified outcome without assuming that one case represents an entire system.
When similar experiences are appropriately verified, de-identified, aggregated, and interpreted carefully, they may help identify successful pathways, recurring barriers, or questions requiring additional investigation.
Patterns Worth Examining May Involve
- Transportation
- Waitlists or capacity
- Service availability
- Information or documentation
- Eligibility
- Administrative processes
- Communication and handoffs
- Professional or program authority
- Accessibility
- Geographic access
- Cross-system responsibility
A Disciplined Progression
Individual information must not be publicly exposed. Any shared learning should be appropriately de-identified, aggregated, governed, and limited to what the evidence supports.
If repeated unmet needs are validated, FAF may help develop practical responses through partnerships, funding support, or other appropriate interventions. FAF should not presume that it will directly provide the missing service.
Begin in Randolph County.
Earn every next step.
FAF is not asking the public to assume that this model should expand. The Randolph County pilot is intended to determine whether the evidence supports continuation, change, broader application, limitation, or reconsideration.
Conduct a disciplined Randolph County pilot, subject to funding, readiness, safeguards, and final program design.
Examine verified outcomes, FAF's material contribution, cases where existing systems worked, unintended burdens, and pilot limitations.
Continue, change, expand, limit, or reconsider the model according to the evidence, governance, funding, and operational readiness.
Any Broader Application Should Depend On
- Demonstrated need
- Measurable material added value
- Reliable outcome verification
- Independent or external review where feasible
- Family and partner experience
- Funding and governance
- Staffing and operational capacity
- Technology readiness
- Privacy, consent, and security safeguards
- Transferability to a different community context
Follow the evidence—even when it changes the direction.
If an existing pathway works, document it.
If FAF adds material value, measure it.
If FAF adds no material value, say so.
If a barrier recurs, examine it carefully.
If the evidence requires change, change.
That is how FAF intends to earn trust before making broader claims.
Test first. Verify outcomes. Let evidence decide.