The Transformation Zone

For the past several years, CEP-Va has brought multiple visionary state leaders from a variety of state and local agencies from around the commonwealth together to discuss how to achieve structural changes–a project called the Transformation Zone (TZ). The TZ project is one of CEP-Va’s more involved and continuous projects and already represents a significant achievement for Virginia. In short, a TZ is a project that imagines a new way of doing business and designs a set of smaller demonstration projects that help build a framework for how to transform the state to this new vision. 

Funded by the Virginia Department of Social Services, the TZ project is guided in its work by three groups: (a) a governing group: the state’s EBP Coordinating Committee, (b) a supporting group: CEP-Va and the Virginia Wraparound Implementation Center (VWIC), and (c) a delivering group: Local Implementation Teams (LITs). Working as the architects and contractors for the project are the State Design Team (SDT) and the State Implementation Team (SIT). The EBP Coordinating Committee, composed of leaders at various state agencies with interests in children’s services, met several times in 2023 to select a focus for the project: expansion of high fidelity wraparound. The EBP Coordinating Committee empowered a State Design Team who spent a year building a site selection process and theory of change for the project. With these items in hand, the State Implementation Team took the reins and moved forward with the plan. 

Most recently, the SIT has begun work with one community, Henry-Martinsville, as the first site. The work has focused on working with local leaders to identify a local team to design and implement changes to improve access and use of high fidelity wraparound. Later in 2026, the SIT will start working with a second community, in the meantime documenting its progress in a playbook that the state can use for years to come. Participating in the Transformation Zone has been an exciting experience for everyone from the head of the Coordinating Committee to the individual interest holders who benefit from the changes that will arise from the work of the SIT and LIT.