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Ready for college, work, life...and the military?
Everyone who runs a youth program believes in their hearts that their program helps kids – but in their heads, they know they need convincing data to prove it.
This new guide from the Forum for Youth Investment – From Soft Skills to Hard Data: Measuring Youth Program Outcomes – is here to help them get it.
Flexible Federal Funds, More Youth Data, Quality Assessment Pays Off
Ready Partners: Summit on families, intermediary groups speak up, jobs for young people
Improving Program Quality, Reaching Educators, Gathering all Stakeholders
Ready Thoughts: As We Count Kids, Remember Young Adults
Ready Partners: Help with Promise Grants, Dropout Prevention Fund, Changing Communities
Ready Thoughts: Giving Voice to Young Men of Color
Forum Flash: Afterschool quality, boosting student achievement, state-level
Ready Partners: Corp. Voices' impact, new youth newsletter, new Promise grants
Ready Thoughts: Youth Engagement = Student Success
How can a community change the quality, coordination and reach of its services, supports and engagement opportunities for children and youth? The Forum’s latest Ready by 21® case study shows how leaders in Petaluma, Calif., did just that, working with the Forum to use the Ready by 21 approach to build a communitywide coalition and develop new strategies that had impact.
I'm not one for big conferences.
The Forum has just launched its new Ready by 21 Policy Alignment Series, which will provide a set of strategies to ensure that new child and youth policies align with existing efforts in order to create a seamless system of supports.
This story shows how community leaders built an overarching leadership council to coordinate and improve youth services. Those leaders used Ready by 21® strategies to expand the council’s scope to include organizations and agencies covering the full range of youth supports, and to get them working toward the same goals.
This is a story about how city leaders engaged their entire community to create a shared vision for their youth and a master plan to carry out that vision. Today that vision and plan, established in conjunction with the Forum for Youth Investment’s Ready by 21® strategies, provide the framework for delivering Nashville’s youth services and supports.
This is a story about how a community built a state-of-the-art online tool to map and track youth services. Community leaders in Austin are using this tool to improve services and make them more accessible to families in need.
This is a story of a community bringing together a wide range of organizations to improve services and results for youth. Community leaders on the Georgetown Divide gathered a broad coalition to improve youth outcomes.
This is a story about how a statewide team created a shared set of desired outcomes for youth. These outcomes form the basis of an action plan for the state of Massachusetts, focused on translating the vision into reality. The Forum for Youth Investment – using the Ready by 21® set of strategies – guided the creation of the outcomes and action plan.
Leaders at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn have changed the way they do business and as a result, increased student success.
Many states and communities have multiple task forces, partnerships and councils working on overlapping youth issues, from bullying to pregnancy to dropouts. This policy brief calls attention to the problem of collaboration overload, and suggests ways to tackle it. Check out these tips for working collaboratively without creating redundancy.
High Expectations and Strong Supports Yield Postsecondary Success is the second installment in the Forum for Youth Investment’s Ready by 21, Credentialed by 26 series. This new brief demonstrates that it is in fact possible to insulate the education pipeline for older, vulnerable youth, by providing the supports necessary for their success.
The first in a new Ready by 21, Credentialed by 26 series, this issue brief explores why postsecondary completion is an important goal and looks at how the U.S. is currently faring. It identifies partners that need to be mobilized and policy approaches that need to be enacted in order to significantly increase completion rates and help more young people successfully transition to adulthood.
he Ready by 21® Quality Counts initiative provided leaders and intermediaries from 12 cities and states around the country with a bold challenge – improving the quality and reach of out-of-school time programming.
November is in full swing and so is the Forum's mission that all young people be Ready by 21 - ready for college, work and life. Take a look at how Ready by 21 is already making an impact in the southeast with presentations from the Southeastern Council of Foundations Annual Meeting in Mobile, Alabama.
Nearly 50 grantmakers and foundation leaders from throughout the Southeast attended a workshop titled The Big Picture:
Using Small Strategic Grants to Increase Capacity for Change,
at the Southeastern Council of Foundations Annual Meeting in Mobile, Alabama on November 11, 2010.
The Ready by 21® Quality Counts initiative provided leaders and intermediaries from 12 cities and states around the country with a bold challenge – improving the quality and reach of out-of-school time programming.
In this issue, we focus on early childhood. We lead with an introduction from Nina Sazer O’Donnell, Vice President of Education for United Way Worldwide, the signature partner of Ready by 21. Then we review several recent publications on this topic. A few reports focus on bolder strategies to improve early childhood program quality and ensure development across multiple areas.
Ready by 21 is a strategy that helps communities improve the odds that all youth will be ready for college, work, and life. Ready by 21 meets leaders where they are, challenges them to think and work differently, and helps them progress further and faster to deliver results for youth.
This month you'll find out about the Ready by 21 Policy Coalition's Capitol Hill briefing, Big Tent Conference, and Ready by 21 webinars. Also don't forget to read Karen's Youth Today column on the Gallup Student Poll, two "big idea" policy papers, and the first installment of the Ready by 21, Credentialed by 26 Series.
The Ready by 21 Policy Alignment Guide helps policymakers ensure that new child and youth policies align with existing efforts to create a seamless system of supports.
On October 27 & 28, the Forum for Youth Investment will offer a Ready by 21 Institute, hosted by the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta in Atlanta, GA.
In this month's issue of Forum Flash, take advantage of several Ready by 21 trainings, including two free webinars and a two-day institute in Atlanta, Georgia. Also, see an inspiring video from a Ready by 21 community, Georgetown Divide in California, on their efforts and progress in empowering staff, improving practice and creating real change for youth.
Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Forum for Youth Investment, the Search Institute and the National Collaboration for Youth responded to an invitation from the Secretary of Education to provide input into the Secretary’s Priorities for Discretionary Grant Programs.
In this issue, we lead with a new analysis, by the Forum for Youth Investment, of several newly released reports on child well-being. The paper outlines how tools such as the Ready by 21 Developmental Dashboard can help leaders be effective. The paper includes commentary on well-being report cards can measure results across outcome areas and ages.
Tracking Child & Youth Well-Being is a new analysis by the Forum of several newly released reports on child and youth well-being. The paper outlines how tools such as the Ready by 21 Developmental Dashboard can help leaders be effective.
All communities need a way to consider their broad goals for children and youth, as well as the specific areas of focus or need. Dashboards are a handy, user-friendly tool that can assist leaders with this difficult task. Come learn more about specific examples and ways to apply this tool to your work to improve the outcomes for children and youth.
This inspiring 12-minute video documents how the Georgetown Divide, a small community in the Sierra foothills of Northern California has embraced a positive youth development approach across the settings where youth spend time and has anchored that commitment through widespread use of the Youth Program Quality Assessment.
In this edition of Forum Flash, read about the Forum's latest work in education and youth policy. Karen Pittman will be a featured panelist at a free event in Washington, DC presenting findings from Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa on the state of education.
Program landscape mapping is a process that enables community members, decision makers and stakeholders to identify or inventory existing youth services and organizations.
The Forum’s America's Youth Councils Network is working with a coalition of national organizations to advocate for the creation of a National Youth Council. On June 30th, coalition members had a West Wing sit-down with Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, to discuss their vision for ways to incorporate youth voice into federal policymaking.
SparkAction officially launched in June! The Forum is proud to be managing this collaborative effort for and by the child and youth field to mobilize a large, well-informed constituency to spark action for change.
In this issue of Forum Flash, read Karen's latest Youth Today column on why research must be used better – not just saved in our inboxes for later reading. Also, check out a guide that the Forum jointly developed with the William T.
Most scholars are expected to mentor junior colleagues, but they are provided few supports and resources to become strong mentors. Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars was jointly developed by the Forum for Youth Investment and the William T. Grant Foundation to add to the resources available to scholars who are mentoring others.
Each issue of READY PICKS focuses on one or more of “the 4 Bs” – the capacities leaders need to strengthen to do business differently, and offers our best picks of research, tools and examples selected from the work of Ready by 21 Partners, Ready by 21 places and others committed to big picture change.
An Opportunity for Three Southeast Communities to Take a Big Picture Approach to Tracking Quality in OST Programs
Upon the request of the Senate HELP Committee, the Forum has prepared detailed legislative comments on how to address the existing "No Child Left Behind" legislation (now known commonly as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or ESEA) using a whole child approach.
This webinar will provide a basic overview of definitions of readiness, research on the number and percentages of youth who are 'ready', connections between individual indicators and overall readiness, and research on the types of supports youth need in order to be ready.
Ready by 21 is a strategy that helps communities improve the odds that all youth will be ready for college, work and life. Ready by 21 meets leaders where they are, challenges them to think and work differently, and helps them progress further and faster to deliver results for youth.
May 2010
By Karen Pittman
Column time: I reached for the “recent research” inbox and pulled out five studies – three national surveys, two major evaluations – and started to read, looking for common themes. Good stuff.
Each issue of READY PICKS focuses on one or more of “the 4 Bs”: broader partnerships, bigger goals, better data and bolder strategies – the capacities leaders need to strengthen to do business differently, and offers our best picks of research, tools and examples selected from the work of Ready by 21 Partners, Ready by 21 places and others committed to big picture change.
In this issue of Forum Flash, be sure to check out videos on the work of Children's Cabinets and Karen's testimony at the Senate HELP Committee on the whole child and ESEA Reauthorization.
All young people need to be prepared to succeed in college, work and life. But in our country, only four out of ten are ready for a productive adulthood, and two in ten are in serious trouble.
Each issue of READY PICKS focuses on one or more of “the 4 Bs”: broader partnerships, bigger goals, better data and bolder strategies – the capacities leaders need to strengthen to do business differently, and offers our best picks of research, tools and examples selected from the work of Ready by 21 Partners, Ready by 21 places and others committed to big picture change.
In this video, hear from Elizabeth Gaines, policy director at the Forum for Youth Investment (The Forum), as well as Children's Cabinet Network members from Tennessee, Maine, and Ohio. You will learn about the Children's Cabinet Network and the role of the Ready by 21 approach.
In this edition of Forum Flash, read about the startling unemployment rates of black young men in Karen Pittman's Youth Today column, get a quick overview of the Ready by 21 Approach in "Bring Precision to Your Passion", hear a recording of the latest Ready by 21 webinar and more.
On Saturday, Jan. 30, Washington, D.C., got its second snowstorm in six weeks. Not nearly as big as the first (only 4 to 5 inches) – but big enough that school openings were delayed the next Monday.
Every community and state has dedicated leaders who have taken on the critical task of bringing diverse people and disparate efforts together in order to transform their community or state into a wonderful place to grow up.
This commentary takes readers inside the world of the Beacons, to understand their approach to supervision. In it, we ask and answer the questions: What does good supervision of youth work professionals look like? How can we strengthen supervision in ways that improve practice and reduce turnover?
Despite major advancements in the field, staffing – everything from recruitment, retention, supervision, to performance – remains a major challenge. There is a need to reexamine currently held assumptions about what it will take to build a strong, stable, committed workforce. What incentives? What opportunities? What requirements? For whom? In what combination?
This month in Forum Flash, read about Karen's experience with seemingly prepared high school seniors and think about the true meaning of "readiness," register for the next Ready by 21 webinar and read about the Forum's efforts to support the youth development field.
Ready by 21 isn’t a program or a campaign or even an initiative. It is a challenge to all who care about children and youth to think differently – to learn a different way to approach all of the tasks associated with trying to manage, make or measure change at any level from the classroom to the capitol – so that they can act differently.
This session examined tools that can assist leaders answer questions that need to be asked. Larry Pasti, Director of Field Services for the Forum for Youth Investment, presented on data tools and methodologies to ask and respond to more complex questions about who and where children are; how well they are doing; what they are participating in; and how these critical supports are, in turn, being
The Institute for Learning Innovation defines free choice learning as “learning that fulfills the lifelong human quest for knowledge, understanding and personal fulfillment.” Heady words.
This month in Forum Flash, we have announced our next webinar on the Ready by 21 Tool Kit - so be sure to save the date. Also, find out more about the Ready by 21 Leadership Network, which will let leaders take full advantage of the Ready by 21 Approach and Partnership.
This session explored a range of tools from Ready by 21 partners that can help answer key questions. Participants learned to ask and answer more complex questions about who and where children are; how well they are doing; what they are participating in; and how these critical supports are, in turn, being viewed and supported.
As a condition for receiving State Fiscal Stabilization Funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, every governor and chief state school officer has agreed to develop statewide longitudinal data systems that can follow individual students from early learning through K-12 to postsecondary education and into the workforce. This publication provides an in-depth look at the collaborat
Welcome to the Ready by 21 Webinar Series!
As the youth development and out-of-school time fields expand and mature, practitioners, policy makers and researchers are increasingly rallying around the importance of assessing and improving program quality. A range of tools is now available to support these efforts.
In this edition of Forum Flash, get the details on the Search Institute's Healthy Communities, Healthy Youth 2009 Conference and why the Ready by 21 National Partnership is a lead sponsor.
States are struggling. Children’s lives, too often, are truly in the balance as states and localities decide where to make cuts, often sacrificing long-term investments to achieve short-term cost savings. And a new National League of Cities report, City Fiscal Conditions 2009, suggests that the situation will worsen over the next two years.
Ready by 21 isn't a program or a campaign or even an initiative.
In this commentary, we compile lessons learned about building quality improvement systems for OST programs, based on emerging research and increasing activity in the field. We also take readers to two places – the state of Michigan and the city of Chicago – where implementation of this model is underway with promising results.
We've got exciting news this month! We're proud to announce our Ready by 21 Video and Brochure – these are great resources that lay out in a simple way the Ready by 21 Challenge, Approach and Partnership. In the video, hear the story of leaders in Richmond using Ready by 21 to improve their community.
On August 12, the Forum for Youth Investment hosted a webinar on the topic of ‘Aligning Policies and Funding’. The session, part of the Ready by 21 Webinar Series, featured presenters from Austin, TX and the Finance Project, a member of the Ready by 21 National Partnership.
Effective leadership for changing the odds for children and youth requires motivating a number of distinct groups to act. It is essential for leaders to develop an aligned and focused advocacy and communications strategy that articulates and builds demand for changing the odds for children and youth.
Ready by 21 isn’t a program or a campaign or even an initiative. It is a challenge to all who care about children and youth to think differently – to learn a different way to approach all of the tasks associated with trying to manage, make or measure change at any level from the classroom to the capitol – so that they can act differently.
On any given day, scores of young people with limited individual and social capital are simultaneously struggling to exit some systems and enter others: foster care, residential treatment centers, higher education, mental health programs, gainful employment.
In this month's Forum Flash, there are lots of resources and updates on how to measure the state of your state's or community's child and youth programs.
Landscape mapping is a process that enables community members, decision makers and stakeholders to identify or inventory existing youth services and organizations. The approach can help move communities and states to examine their current assets, help to create connections, improve efficiency in the use of limited resources and assist community members to know what is available to them.
The Ready by 21® Challenge calls on states and communities to change the odds for children and youth by changing the way they do business
This commentary takes readers on a cross-country tour of after-school innovation – from northern and southern California to Chicago, New York and New Hampshire. In On the Ground we describe two very different school-based models in California.
In Karen Pittman's Youth Today column, she reflects on the election that successfully mobilized young people and diverse citizens alike. Karen also worked with other child and youth leaders at the Shaping America's Youth IV Forum that prepared recommendations for President Obama. Also, check out the opening for a Program Manager at the David P.
Considering the heightened focus on data-driven decision making, this webinar will explore the latest developments in tracking youth indicators and outcomes. In this Ready by 21 Webinar, best practice examples from states will be explored, highlighting new and proven ways to develop a balanced range of both positive and negative youth indicators.
On January 20, I joined millions of Americans and millions more around the world to watch the inauguration of our 44th president. Bad knees kept me out of the crowd, but I dutifully taped the day for family and friends who went out to be counted. I beamed at the image of the soon-to-be president, head back, eyes closed, breathing in the wonderful music played by Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman.
Nicole Yohalem will discuss the relationship between outcomes and measures of quality and describe characteristics of quality assessment and improvement systems in an upcoming Afterschool Investments webinar: Systems Building Challenges for Afterschool Initiatives: Developing Common Measures of Quality, Thursday, February 19 from 1:00 pm–2:30 pm EST.
Nicole Yohalem will be a featured speaker on a conference call hosted by Grantmakers for Children, Youth, and Families, The Forum for Youth Investment, and the University of Wisconsin Center for Nonprofits.
During these tough times, you need the right tools to figure out what's working.
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the Forum held an interactive webinar on February 20 that highlighted the efforts of state legislators who, with their colleagues across the aisle, are prioritizing the coordination of services, developing a common set of outcomes and collaborating to implement plans that foster the well-being of youth.
Policymakers increasingly view youth development and after-school programs as solutions to a host of problems confronting youth, communities and our country overall. Yet, funds for these programs as a whole are scarce and when resources are devoted to training or workforce development, they appear to be included as afterthoughts or minor priorities.
Program quality assessment and improvement continue to be central themes in the after-school and youth development fields. In March 2007 we released the first edition of this report comparing the purpose, history, structure, methodology, content and technical properties of different program observation tools.
As the year comes to a end, several projects at the Forum are reaching major milestones. The Ready by 21 Quality Counts sites celebrated the end of the first year and planned ahead to the second and final year of the initiative.
There are numerous child and youth development frameworks being used by youth serving organizations and government entities. A common vision and framework allow for better mission and resource alignment, more precise measurement of progress and provide a useful tool for communicating goals and strategies to the public, families and youth, funders, policy makers and community stakeholders.
The Forum and our partners have been working hard behind the scenes to create a White House Office on Children and Youth.
By Karen Pittman, December 2008
The core belief here at the Forum for Youth Investment – that all young people should be Ready by 21 – ready for college, work and life – often provokes public criticism. The exchanges typically go like this:
“Not every young person needs to go to college,” calls out one person from an audience. True, I say, but all should be ready to.
Ready by 21 isn’t a program or a campaign or even an initiative. It is a challenge to all who care about children and youth to think differently – to learn a different way to approach all of the tasks associated with trying to manage, make or measure change at any level from the classroom to the capitol – so that they can act differently.
Change is coming. Not just to the White House, but to Ready by 21 communities across the country. Stay tuned for exciting updates on our Ready by 21 rollout plans in the next issue of Forum Flash. Also check out our 3 latest publications, a Michigan Dropout Summit and more!
The Forum partnered with the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Nonprofits to publish Youth-Adult Partnerships in Public Action: Principles, Organizational Culture and Outcomes.
This commentary highlights the work of the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems, a collaborative of mature, city and county-wide nonprofit OST intermediaries, to develop and adopt common youth-, program- and system-level measures that are easy and cost-effective for local systems to implement.
Across the country, too few youth leave high school ready for success. Community statistics and conditions vary, but there is no community across the country that is doing well enough by its children and youth. There is a need to do more. More to the point, there is a need to do better – to make bolder commitments, to create broader ownership and partnerships, to ensure greater returns on public and private investments.
The Forum for Youth Investment convened a group of key stakeholders in Louisville, KY at the Neighborhood House in an effort to assist these community and state leaders with aligning their youth efforts into a big picture framework.
In 2007, the Next Generation Youth Work Coalition launched the Clear Policies for Career Pathways project to identify and build upon efforts underway around the country to establish comprehensive workforce development systems for the youth work field.
The Forum assembled Children's Cabinets and Youth Councils in New Orleans and gave these groups a chance to interact with each other. Also this month, the latest Next Generation Youth Work Coalition Bulletin came out with updates on the work being done to support communications and development for youth workers.
The Forum is proud to revive the Out-of-School Time Policy Commentary; the first issue is focused on youth work practice and reivews studies that our broadening our knowledge. Karen Pittman's Youth Today column looks at what young people need to get through school rather than dropping out.
By Karen Pittman, July 2008
Seven students recently joined me for breakfast in a windowless conference room in Des Moines to talk about “the high school dropout crisis.” They were experts: Five had dropped out. Another had come very close.
The Forum's OST Policy Commentary series is back! In this issue we discuss the implications of recent research led by Bart Hirsch, Reed Larson and Charles Smith. Each study helps deepen our understanding of youth work practice and can inform policy strategies aimed at developing a strong, stable, committed and prepared OST workforce.
There are numerous child and youth development frameworks being used by youth serving organizations and government entities.
The America’s Promise Alliance is supporting 50 state and at least 50 city Dropout Prevention Summits to be held by 2010. The purposes of the Dropout Prevention Summits are many, but the primary intention is to increase public awareness of the dropout and college-readiness crisis.
Forum staff members, Merita Irby and Karen Finn traveled to Chicago and Springfield, Illinois, May 19 and 20, where they faciliated trainings with leaders from the Illinois Department of Human Services' Division of Community Health and Prevention.
On May 15, Karen Pittman moderated a panel – Preparing Youth for Success in a Global Economy – at the Community Leaders Conference hosted by United Way of America in Baltimore. Karen spoke about the Ready by 21 framework data on youth readiness that can be applied to work supporting youth.
As part of the Forum's commitment to support Quality Counts sites, the Forum, along with Iowa Collaboration for Youth Development, co-sponsored Governor Culver's dropout prevention summit aimed at creating urgency and developing action plans to respond to the dropout crisis of minority youth in 15 Iowa communities. Karen Pittman traveled to Des Moines on May 7
On May 8, Karen Pittman traveled to Mason City, Iowa where she delivered the keynote at the first annual Adolescent Youth Workers Summit that kicked off Mason City's participation in the Ready by 21 Quality Counts Initiative. There, Karen spoke to over 100 youth work practitioners and community leaders about the importance of improving the quality and reach of youth programs.
By Karen Pittman, May 2008
Creating sound bites that are not only memorable but communicate a message is a passion of mine. Every now and then I hit one out of the park. “Problem-free isn’t fully prepared” is still in use after more than 15 years. I think “bringing precision to our passion” may be the next one to stick.
Below are featured clips from the press conference announcing the national launch of the Ready by 21 Challenge, aimed at helping state and local leaders change the odds for youth by changing the way they do business.
The six partners who in 2007 made formal commitments to work with the Forum to advance the Ready by 21 Challenge represent the education, government, nonprofit, business and community philanthropy sectors. Below are featured clips from the partner panel discussion at the National Launch in Washington, DC.
Ready by 21 isn't a program or a campaign or even an initiative. It is a challenge to all who care about children and youth to learn a different approach to the tasks associated with trying to manage, make or measure change at any level from the classroom to the capitol.
The six partners who in 2007 made formal commitments to work with the Forum to advance the Ready by 21 Challenge represent the education, government, nonprofit, business and community philanthropy sectors. Each was chosen because they had pledged to do business differently and sought out the Forum to help in some way.
The Forum for Youth Investment issues Ready by 21® Challenge to change the odds for youth by changing the way we do business.
Former Congressman Dick Gephardt and former Governor Tom Ridge join the Forum and national partners to move the Ready by 21 Challenge across the country – reaching communities in all 50 states over the next 5 years.
Twenty five years ago, the blue ribbon National Commission on Excellence in Education stunned the country by declaring:
After a decade of moving ideas to impact, the Forum for Youth Investment continues to forge innovative ideas, strategies and partnerships to strengthen solutions for young people and those who care about them. Learn more about the Forum's beginnings and work in the 10th Anniversary Organizational Brochure.
Find the answers to the most frequently asked questions about Ready by 21 and the Ready by 21 Challenge.
Washington DC -- On February 27th, Former Congressman Dick Gephardt, Former Governor Tom Ridge and United Way of America President Brian Gallagher will join Forum for Youth Investment co-founders Karen Pittman and Merita Irby to kick-off the national phase of the Forum’s Ready by 21™ Challenge. The Ready by 21™ Challenge calls on states and c
By Karen Pittman, December 2007
Embedded in the pages of the October Youth Today were two pieces that are worth revisiting so that they can be connected. Consider this a low-budget instant replay with comments.
The first piece was Peter Benson’s column, “Youth Development and the Creative Life,” in which he laments the continued decline of investment in the arts and offers data that suggest that the most common source of “spark” for U.S. teens—“the interest or talent from which we derive energy”—is the creative arts. According to Benson’s research, “music, art, dance and writing are mentioned twice as often as sports” by both boys and girls.
More than $2,500,000 in grants, technical assistance awarded to enhance local youth programs.
In Maryland, there are many agencies, organizations, task forces and coalitions focused on various pieces of the puzzle needed to ensure that all youth are ready for adulthood. While aiming for similar ultimate goals, these groups are often working in parallel and occasionally at cross purposes due to funding streams and grant restrictions.
The Council for Youth Development is a local coalition, supported by a successful, nationally-recognized program. The Council includes our school systems, youth-serving agencies, government, United Way and scores of agencies dedicated to helping prepare our children to be healthy, successful members of society.
Engaging young people as partners in community change is a compelling idea, but translating that idea into effective practice requires focused attention to a range issues. The principles described in this paper emerged from the commingling of research and practice that occurred when the Forum for Youth Investment merged with Community IMPACT! USA.
Iowa is working through the Iowa Collaboration for Youth Development and Iowa’s Promise to ensure that all Iowa youth have the opportunity to be successful…in school, in a career, and in life. Iowa’s vision is for All Iowa Youth to be Safe, Healthy, Successful and Prepared for Adulthood.
This two-pager summarizes the core assumptions that philanthropists, planners and policy makers consciously or unconsciously take into account when making decisions about where to focus their efforts to bring about change.
Part of the Ready by 21® Change Makers in Action Series, this case study describes the work done by the Georgetown Divide Ready by 21 Coalition.
The Council for Youth Development is the third generation of community work in Bartholomew County, Indiana, focusing on children and youth. The Council has as its ultimate goal every child in the county being Ready by 21™ – ready for learning, ready for work, ready for life.
Reflecting on her life as a teen growing up in the low-income neighborhoods of Washington, DC, Karen Pittman spells out why she is determined to have the Forum meet its goal of challenging national partners and state and local change makers to ensure that every young person is Ready by 21®.
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