Thrive by Five(TM) Washington Chooses Social Solutions

BALTIMORE, MD--(Marketwire - November 13, 2007) - Social Solutions, nationally recognized for empowering human service providers and the organizations that fund them to strategically tie their efforts to measurable outcomes, today announced a new customer. Thrive by Five™ Washington, an organization created to serve as a catalyst for young children's success, has selected Social Solutions' ETO Software® to support service integration in two community-wide initiatives and to underpin an 8-10 year longitudinal study of those initiatives.

The community-wide initiatives in the central Washington community of East Yakima and Puget Sound area White Center community south of Seattle will provide opportunities to learn and demonstrate what birth to five programs work to support young children's school preparedness and later life success. Over the life of these initiatives, home-based early learning, child care and other services within these communities will be expanded and enhanced through funding from Thrive by Five™ Washington and its funding partners.

"We are pleased that the ETO software created by Social Solutions will help the many local early learning professionals who support children's healthy development," said Dr. Graciela Italiano-Thomas, president and CEO, Thrive by Five™ Washington. "Importantly, this system will also allow us to learn many important things about how comprehensive services best support families and professionals in helping children to succeed."

Local public and non-profit agencies will work together to make sure that children receive appropriate services to promote their early learning and development. The ETO software will be configured to manage cases shared across agencies, to support assessment and improvements of service quality and to document connections between activities and outcomes.

"We are excited to work with Social Solutions and Thrive by Five™ Washington to create a management information system that meets the needs of this exciting and complex community project. The security and flexibility of the software allows us to effectively collect information to enhance collaboration with our local partners. It is also an important tool in understanding the multiple efforts that help children to be ready for school," comments Dr. Jane Gutting, Superintendent of Educational Service District 105 in Yakima.

Dr. Monte Bridges, Superintendent of Puget Sound Educational Service District which is managing the community-wide effort in White center notes, "We are excited that the ETO software will help us with an important outcome of this initiative which is to make sure that the many organizations and programs which serve families in White Center can work effectively together so that children get what they need to thrive."

Funding partners of Thrive by Five™ Washington have been drawn to the effort because of the ability to see how investments in a variety of proven and promising programs help get young children off to a strong start. By studying the work of multiple nonprofit and public agencies in the two communities over an 8-10 year period, the organization seeks to inform future policy and funding deliberations.

The research project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will study and evaluate programs delivered in these communities and identify and document the most successful supports. Evaluators at Mathematica and the University of Washington will use the software to gather outcome data related to the services provided and Thrive by Five™ Washington program development staff will use data to support continuous quality improvements to program design. Social Solutions President Steve Butz personally facilitated the initial session to identify possible outcome indicators.

"What Thrive by Five™ Washington is seeking to accomplish through this research project promises to have a profound impact on Washington's young children and their families for generations," said Butz. "Our goal is to provide the organization and the study with a system for keeping their daily efforts aligned with their valiant goals."

Founded by human service workers, Social Solutions seeks to revolutionize the effectiveness of human service, social service, and other nonprofit organizations by helping them align their missions, funders' expectations, and the daily work of their staffs. Its ETO Software is currently in place in more than 6,000 organizations across the United States.

About Thrive by Five™ Washington

Thrive by Five™ Washington is a public/private partnership designed to serve as a catalyst for improvements to parenting education and support, child care, preschool, and other early learning environments throughout Washington. For more information visit www.thrivebyfivewa.org.

THRIVE BY FIVE is a trademark of financial literacy programs for preschoolers supported by Credit Union National Association, Inc. ("CUNA") and is not affiliated with Thrive by Five™ Washington. Learn more at http://www.creditunion.coop/pre_k/index.html.

About Social Solutions and ETO Software®

Social Solutions challenges and equips human service providers and their funders to turn good intent into measurable change by relating efforts to outcomes. The company's ETO (Efforts to Outcomes) reporting software replaces one-size-fits-all data tracking with a reporting system tailored to the unique mission of each nonprofit organization. ETO Software® generates a clear and accurate measure of impact to improve service delivery, earn more funding, and reduce the time and resources dedicated to tracking performance.

Contact Information: Media Contacts: Courtney Gidner DBC Public Relations (202) 298-7600 x202 courtney@dbcpr.com