LAUNCH: AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO REACHING OPPORTUNITY YOUTH Final Evaluation Report April 2021

In Spring 2018 the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) selected the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley (United Way) to lead Launch, a network of community-based providers in five Boston-area communities that would collaborate to create a coordinated system of providing outreach, connection and referrals, as well as education, training, and job placements to opportunity youth ages 18-24 living in subsidized housing in Greater Boston.

The goal of Launch is: To disrupt intergenerational poverty by increasing awareness among 18-24-year-olds living in state subsidized housing of available education and career pathways, and improving their access to opportunities for upward economic mobility through a coordinated network of service providers.

The Forum for Youth Investment was engaged to conduct a one-year process evaluation to better understand implementation, and then to continue conducting evaluation to feed continuous improvement efforts and to better understand success.

Evaluation results confirmed that Launch is a promising approach to connecting 18–24-year-olds living in subsidized housing to college and career pathways and it merits further investments to better understand implementation and impact in the Boston area. This report discusses those results.