Building Assets and Reducing Risks (BARR) I3 Scale-Up Evaluation Final Report

This American Institutes for Research (AIR) report examines the impact of Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR), a comprehensive, strength-based approach that uses eight components and focuses on the use of real-time data to build intentional staff-to-staff, staff-to-student, and student-to-student relationships in schools. The evaluation focuses specifically on BARR in ninth grade, where BARR aims to facilitate the challenging transition from middle to high school. This evaluation, the third in a series of randomized controlled trials funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) program, documents the scale-up of the BARR model during the grant period (2017–2021) and the implementation and impacts of the program in its first year of implementation in 66 schools across the United States.

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