What's It All About?
The Annie E. Casey's Foundation's Making Connections initiative
is an effort to transform neighborhoods and strengthen families.
The Youth Development and Research Fund (YDRF) was contracted by
the foundation to provide peer-to-peer technical assistance learning
opportunities for those Making Connections sites that are also Department
of Labor funded Youth Opportunity (YO) sites. By empowering Making
Connections Sites to learn from one another about best practices
in meeting the needs of youth, YDRF's efforts are designed to both
improve the manner in which sites serve young people as well as
create a shared sense of community and reciprocal learning that
will allow sites to realize first-hand the concrete value both they
and their peers have to offer. This newsletter is designed to share
YDRF's efforts to date and inform others about some of the important
strategies and findings that have come out of recent peer-to-peer
TA efforts.
Assessing the Issues
YDRF conducted an assessment process with Making Connections/YO
sites to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses around serving
young people's needs. This assessment (which included Boston, Baltimore,
Washington DC, Hartford, San Diego, Louisville, Denver and Detroit),
beyond helping YDRF to prepare peer-to-peer match topics and agendas,
also allowed us a unique window into the Youth Opportunity Movement
to date and where improvement measures are still needed. Indeed,
one startling reservation was that after over a year of YO service
to youth, every site reported that they still required technical
assistance on how to recruit, retain, and engage young people in
concrete developmental activities. Sites expressed a general lack
of insight on how to reach out to youth who in the past have seen
little value in traditional educational and workplace training experiences
and a longing for systemic approaches to creating a sense of membership
and investment for these young people in YO programming. Other areas
of need common to many sites included academic remediation programming
for those youth who come to the program with low grade level abilities
at one end of the spectrum and strategies for motivating and assisting
youth to proceed to higher education on the other end. Other issues
of concern included: family and community engagement; establishing
and solidifying labor market connections; emergency services and
management tracking systems.
Focusing on the Problems
As a part of YDRF's initiative for assisting Making Connections/Youth
Opportunity sites with the enhancement of service delivery to youth,
YDRF invited the front line staff from the Baltimore YO! program
to witness a series of focus groups conducted at a field house with
Baltimore community members. The two sessions were designed to provide
YO! Staff, which included recruiters, employment advocates, site
coordinators, and job developers with insight on how to 1) better
engage families and the community and 2) how to fortify connections
with the local Baltimore labor market.
The Family and Community Engagement focus group included the participation
of African American males and females who either themselves had
a child, or knew someone personally who had dropped out of school.
The Labor Market Connections and Engaging Employers focus group
drew upon the insights of African American males and females who
were Baltimore employers and were in a position to hire a young
person.
Both focus groups were highly informative and acted as a unique
opportunity for Baltimore YO! Staff to hear from average Baltimore
community members about their perception of youth and youth programs
in their community and their insights on how the YO! Program could
involve them more in service delivery for youth.
Some of the findings from the groups were:
- Programs should promote themselves through block parties/celebrations
in the community in order to get families and the community involved
in the program. Program staff should also visit other community-based
organizations in the area and church organizations to promote
their program to recruit young people.
- Programs that provide employment training should place young
people in jobs that have room for advancement- great emphasis
was placed on the importance of providing apprenticeship opportunities.
- An emphasis was placed on the need for tutoring and after-school
child-care. Participants also expressed an interest in youth programs
helping adults and parents to take advantage of these pertinent
services.
- " Programs should have and open door policy so that parents
from the community can get involved in program planning and implementation.
Participants also felt that it was important for youth to be involved
in program planning and implementation.
Employers shared that programs have to be more aggressive in soliciting
opportunities and explaining why hiring youth from their programs
will be more than just a good deed but advantageous to the program.
Employers also asked for training and preparation in how to handle
and address the special needs of potential youth employees.
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