The potential for thriving is universal, but so too is the existence of adversity. Young people can overcome adversities, but the ease of doing so is not equally shared. Opportunity structures – in schools, communities, and society – make it easier for some youth to avoid or buffer the impacts of adversity than others.
A new report from the Readiness Projects partners, Thriving, Robust Equity, and Transformative Learning & Development, speaks to the needs of all youth, as every youth can benefit from robust approaches to thriving, equity, and learning.

Recently, the Forum for Youth Investment, the National Urban League, and the American Institutes for Research united to start the Readiness Projects, an effort to devote time, resources, and perspectives to stimulate equity-driven solutions and policies.

To further this effort, the partners have launched a new blog on Medium, Changing the Odds for Youth: A Community Dialogue on What it Will Take, to start a critical conversation on what we must do to upend inequities and build back better and broader together.

Developing powerful environments where youth can thrive requires coordination, critical backbone services, supports, and continuous quality improvement. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) and The Opportunity Project (Tulsa, OK) presented this webinar focused on integrating learning systems through quality expanded learning opportunities.

According to The Aspen Institute’s “From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope” report, school-community coordination is critical to supporting children's well-being. Building on this, new research from the National Academies of Sciences, titled "Shaping Summertime Experiences: Opportunities to Promote Healthy Development and Well-Being for Children and Youth," highlights the role of summertime – a unique opportunity to foster such cross-sector partnerships. The importance of these partnerships are more important than ever before, given the trauma, adversity, food insecurity, and other disruptions that children and families are experiencing.

CASEL CARES is a new initiative from CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) that connects individuals and communities with experts to address how Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) can be most helpful in today’s circumstances. It is important to recognize that the most vulnerable students are at particular risk during this time. As part of the CASEL CARES webinar series, the Education Trust’s John King and the Forum’s Karen Pittman recently offered reflections on existing inequities in education that have been exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic.

It’s springtime, yet rather than preparing for end-of-year assessments, graduation, prom, and summer school, educators and school personnel, along with community organizations and families, are grappling with the challenges of facilitating learning, keeping young people safe, and supporting their overall well-being when “out-of-school time is all the time.”  As educators try to find stop-gap measures to make learning accessible to every student, what are the most effective ways to engage and empower our adolescents, particularly in high school and beyond, so that they are equipped to manage change and difficulty?