Advocate Access
Get In Touch
HOPE Collaborative Partner Resource Hub
Building a HOPE-CENTERED Montgomery County
Thank you for participating in a county-wide collaborative to strengthen well-being, resilience, and measurable outcomes across our community.
Visit the HOPE Collaborative Document Library
Partner Resource Hub
Montgomery County HOPE Collaborative
Ten organizations across Montgomery County have committed to a 14-month partnership with Dr. Chan Hellman to build hope-centered cultures inside their own teams and programs. This page is your home base for the collaborative: the science behind it, what happens and when, what your organization signed up for, and who to call with questions.
Partner organizations
Months, Nov 2026–Dec 2027
County-wide model, built together
Hope is a skill, not a feeling
Hope is not wishful thinking. It is a research-validated psychological strength, and it can be taught, measured, and strengthened the same way any other skill can. Decades of peer-reviewed research, including new studies published in 2024, connect higher levels of hope to reduced burnout among staff, lower rates of depression and suicide risk, improved academic outcomes including 3rd-grade reading scores, higher workforce engagement and retention, and improved well-being in both children and adults.1,2
Hope is one of the strongest predictors of well-being ever studied.
Chan Hellman, Ph.D., co-author of Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life
The framework your organization is implementing rests on three parts, and every training in this collaborative builds toward one of them:
Goals
Setting clear, meaningful, achievable targets, for staff and for the families and children you serve.
Pathways
Identifying more than one route to reach those targets, so a single roadblock doesn’t stall progress.
Agency
Building the belief and the motivation to act, the part of hope that turns a plan into movement.
Led by Dr. Chan Hellman
Dr. Chan Hellman is co-author of Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life and the developer of the Hope-Centered and Trauma Informed® training model, the only Science of Hope curriculum rated by the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC).3 His work draws on more than 40 published peer-reviewed studies.
Your Executive Leadership, Staff Hope Awareness, and Hope Navigator® trainings all come out of this same model. Here is what past participants in Dr. Hellman’s Hope Navigator training have reported, drawn from his organization’s five-year evaluation of more than 200 participating Hope Navigators nationally:
Reported increased knowledge of hope
Reported more confidence using hope strategies
Said their hope-centered project improved client outcomes
Said their project improved workforce morale
Source: Hope Centered, five-year evaluation of Hope Navigator training participants (n=200+). All metrics above showed statistically significant improvement.
Your collaborative roadmap
Every partner organization moves through the same eight components. Some are one-time trainings, some run the full 14 months.
Executive Leadership Training In-Person
6 hours. Two leadership representatives per organization (20 total). Leaders build a shared vision for hope as a core value and identify implementation priorities for their own organization.
Staff Hope Awareness Training Virtual
2 hours, live and interactive. Open to unlimited staff at each organization, offered across multiple dates so every team member can attend.
Hope Navigator Training In-Person
12 hours over 2 days. Two staff members per organization (20 total) receive intensive training to lead implementation. These are your internal champions for the rest of the collaborative.
Hope Navigator Community of Practice Virtual
6 sessions, monthly, January–December 2027. Your two Hope Navigators join facilitated peer learning and problem-solving with Navigators from the other nine organizations.
Quarterly Consulting with Dr. Hellman Virtual
4 sessions, January–December 2027. Open to any representative from your organization. Group consulting to work through real questions and challenges as they come up.
Coordination & Logistics Support
Child Advocates of Montgomery County handles meeting space for in-person trainings, technology setup, participant registration, and ongoing troubleshooting for every partner organization.
Evaluation & Measurement Support
Pre and post assessment tools, hope metrics, and data collection support, all rolling up into a county-wide evaluation that shows collective outcomes across all 10 organizations.
Resources & Implementation Materials
Access to curricula, implementation guides, and communication templates developed by Dr. Hellman and adapted specifically for Montgomery County.
How the training model builds
The Hope-Centered model trains from the top down. Leadership sets hope as a core value, your two Hope Navigators lead hands-on implementation across the organization, and all staff get grounded in the basics through Hope Awareness Training.
Your commitment as a partner organization
- ✓Designate 2 leadership participants for Executive Leadership Training
- ✓Identify 2 staff members to serve as your Hope Navigators
- ✓Support your Navigators’ participation in the monthly Community of Practice
- ✓Provide staff time for Hope Awareness Training
- ✓Participate in pre and post evaluation and data collection
- ✓Share implementation experiences with the other 9 partner organizations
- ✓Complete the full 14-month collaborative commitment
- ✓Contribute the $6,900 investment on your chosen payment schedule
Collaborative schedule
Click the red calendar button on any session that applies to your role, whether that’s leadership, your Hope Navigators, or your whole staff, to add it to your calendar right now. Join links for virtual sessions come later, by calendar invite and email, closer to each date.
2026: Launch
| Date | Session | Who / Format | Calendar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 30, 2026 10:00–11:30 a.m. |
Welcome & Vision session with Dr. Hellman | Virtual All partner org representatives | + Calendar |
| Nov 2 | Executive Leadership Training | In-Person 2 leaders per org | + Calendar |
| Nov 3 | Hope Navigator Training, Day 1 | In-Person 2 Navigators per org | + Calendar |
| Nov 4 | Hope Navigator Training, Day 2 | In-Person 2 Navigators per org | + Calendar |
| Dec 8 | Staff Hope Awareness Training, Session 1 | Virtual All staff | + Calendar |
2027: Implementation Year
| Date | Session | Who / Format | Calendar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 12 | Hope Navigator Community of Practice, Session 1 | Virtual Your 2 Navigators | + Calendar |
| Jan 14 | Staff Hope Awareness Training, Session 2 | Virtual All staff | + Calendar |
| Feb 2 | Quarterly Consulting with Dr. Hellman, Session 1 | Virtual Open to all org reps | + Calendar |
| Mar 30 | Hope Navigator Community of Practice, Session 2 | Virtual Your 2 Navigators | + Calendar |
| Apr 7 | Staff Hope Awareness Training, Session 3 | Virtual All staff | + Calendar |
| May 11 | Hope Navigator Community of Practice, Session 3 | Virtual Your 2 Navigators | + Calendar |
| May 13 | Quarterly Consulting with Dr. Hellman, Session 2 | Virtual Open to all org reps | + Calendar |
| Jul 7 | Hope Navigator Community of Practice, Session 4 | Virtual Your 2 Navigators | + Calendar |
| Jul 7 | Staff Hope Awareness Training, Session 4 | Virtual All staff | + Calendar |
| Aug 3 | Quarterly Consulting with Dr. Hellman, Session 3 | Virtual Open to all org reps | + Calendar |
| Sep 9 | Hope Navigator Community of Practice, Session 5 | Virtual Your 2 Navigators | + Calendar |
| Oct 6 | Staff Hope Awareness Training, Session 5 | Virtual All staff | + Calendar |
| Nov 2 | Hope Navigator Community of Practice, Session 6 | Virtual Your 2 Navigators | + Calendar |
| Nov 2 | Quarterly Consulting with Dr. Hellman, Session 4 | Virtual Open to all org reps | + Calendar |
| Dec 7 | Staff Hope Awareness Training, Session 6 | Virtual All staff | + Calendar |
Path to becoming a certified Hope-Centered organization
This collaborative is built on the same fidelity indicators Dr. Hellman uses to certify Hope-Centered organizations. You won’t need to chase all six at once, but this is the standard your organization is working toward over the 14 months.
Leadership Commitment
Leadership communicates a clear vision of hope as a core value informing policy, practice, and culture.
Policy & Procedures
Policy changes reflect a commitment to hope as a core value, for both clients and workforce.
Science of Hope Integrity
Internal and external communication consistently reflects hope’s definition and core components.
Sustaining Hope Efforts
Hope shows up in recruitment, selection, and onboarding, not just in training materials.
Hope Is the Practice Model
Hope strategies are built into program service delivery, not treated as a separate initiative.
Evaluation Activities Include Hope Metrics
Hope and collective hope become part of how your organization measures outcomes.
Partner organizations
These are the 10 organizations working through the Montgomery County HOPE Collaborative together.
Questions about the collaborative?
Camille Davis, Senior Director of Programs & Services, coordinates all logistics for the Montgomery County HOPE Collaborative.
- North Carolina State University. (2024, August 30). How hope beats mindfulness when times are tough. ScienceDaily.
- Land, K.L., Shanahan, M.L., Fischer, I.C., & Fortney, S.K. (2024, August 30). Hope and optimism as predictors of academic performance and subjective well-being. ScienceDirect.
- Gwinn, C., & Hellman, C. (2018). Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life. California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC) listing: cebc4cw.org.