Ready News: November 7, 2018
November 8, 2018
In This Issue: Opportunity Youth, Collective Impact, Youth Engagement, Equity
| Where, When and How Does Learning Happen? |
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How can schools and youth development organizations better align to increase their communities’ understanding of the importance of focusing on the whole learner? Broaden access to high-quality learning opportunities that support comprehensive development? Strengthen adult social and emotional learning practice?
Youth development leaders gathered recently in Washington, D.C. to address these questions and more. The event (link to live stream recording), convened by the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development (Commission), focused on the release of a new brief from its Youth Development Work Group (YDWG) offering insights and recommendations on these important topics.
The brief, “Building Partnerships: In Support of Where, When, and How Learning Happens,” authored by the Forum for Youth Investment’s Karen Pittman and Priscilla Little, presents a framework and a new powerful graphic for broadening our understanding of how, when and where students learn, both in and out of school and during the summer. The brief highlights examples from across the country of local partnerships that support youth, such as the Tacoma Whole Child Initiative and Denver’s cross-sector partnership of the Denver Afterschool Alliance and Denver Public Schools.
Join us for a Twitter Chat next Friday, November 16, from 2-3 pm EST. Use the hashtag #readyyouth to let your voice be heard!
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| The Lingering Effects of Youth Experiencing Disconnection |
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Being disconnected, out of school and unemployed as a young person is potentially traumatic. These experiences can have lasting impacts on income, employability, health and well-being. The effects grow the longer a young person is disconnected. And the effects linger over time.
These findings appear in a recent report, “Two Futures: The Economic Case for Keeping Youth on Track,” by Measure for America. The report is the first to follow a cohort of what the group terms “disconnected youth” or “opportunity youth” over the course of about fifteen years. Recently, Next City sat down with the Forum’s Karen Pittman to discuss the report and its implications for the youth-serving field.
Karen stated that the Measure of America report provides hard evidence to support investments in programs that help young people at all age ranges – not just the earliest interventions.
“The fact that young people who are disconnected from schools or the labor market don’t do as well as young who stay connected in that 1-24 range – that’s not news. We know that,” Pittman says. “But the idea that the extent of the gap between the connected and the disconnected gets greater 15 years out – that is news. They don’t catch up. It’s a lingering effect.”
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| Beyond Seats at the Table: Equity, Inclusion and Collective Impact |
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In the past few years, both collective impact and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) have played a major role in the nonprofit sector. However, these two concepts themselves have not always converged. This unfortunately has been leading to many challenges, including the perpetuation of the very injustice communities are trying to fight. What does collective impact look like when it is grounded in equity?
In a thought-provoking presentation, Vu Le (Rainier Valley Corps and NonprofitAF blog) delves into these questions and more at the 2018 Collective Impact Convening.
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| Redesigned Youth Engaged 4 Change Website by the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs |
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The Youth Engaged 4 Change (YE4C) website has a fresh, new look with content that continues to inspire and empower young people to improve their lives and the world around them.
Youth play an important role in strengthening programs and improving youth outcomes. YE4C was created by the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs in partnership with youth and young adults who make change happen every day. While youth.gov is geared toward providing information for adults who work with youth in various settings, YE4C is meant to reach young people directly. The newly-redesigned site will help youth who want to find opportunities, answers and inspiration.
To kick off the launch of the YE4C redesign, there is a contest to learn more about key questions youth face regarding decision-making. Youth will be able to submit multimedia creative and narrative responses that address this question. Visit the refreshed site today and share it with young people you care about (using #ExploreYE4C) to give them access to trusted resources that help them improve their lives and their communities.
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100 Million Healthier Lives (a global movement convened by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement), is inviting individuals, organizations and community members to convene “house meeting” conversations – small group conversations that build relationships to help meaningfully advance equity. You are invited to help them get to a shared goal of 100 small group conversations by December 7.
100 Million Healthier Lives is a worldwide movement of change agents pursuing an unprecedented result: 100 million people living healthier lives by 2020. Through collaboration, innovative improvement and system transformation, they are fundamentally transforming the way the world thinks and acts to improve health, well-being and equity.
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