Round 1 Pilot Site Abstracts
Los Angeles
Pilot Lead: City of Los Angeles (CA)
The City of Los Angeles and core partners including the County of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), and the Los Angeles Community College District will enhance service systems for disconnected youth. By building on its infrastructure of 16 YouthSource Centers (YSCs) strategically located in neighborhoods with high dropout rates, as well as within the Los Angeles Promise Zone, LA P3 will target youth who are ages 16 through 24, high school drop-outs, in foster care, homeless, or on probation. Funded with local education dollars, funds provided under the youth program authorized by Title I of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and a Workforce Innovation Fund (WIF) grant, the YSCs conduct outreach to, and principally serve, disconnected youth. The LAUSD co-locates a school counselor at each YSC to provide youth with school re-enrollment assistance and to make referrals to school system resources, such as mental health services, and other support services. Through LA P3, the City will expand the employment and education services available to youth through the YSCs and extend the YSC partnership to include regional areas throughout Los Angeles County. The enhanced service model will include Los Angeles County Departments such as the Department of Community and Senior Services, Department of Health Services, Department of Children and Family Services, Probation Department, Department of Public Social Services, the State Employment Development Department, local Cal State Universities (CSU5), the LA Chamber and many others. The pilot will braid the following federal and non-federal funding sources to support services for the disconnected youth target population: WIOA Title I Youth and Title I Adult programs, Runaway and Homeless Youth Act Transitional Living, Promise Neighborhoods, local funding, and My Brother’s Keeper (private philanthropy).
Broward County
Pilot Lead: Children’s Services Council of Broward County (FL)
The Children’s Services Council of Broward County will blend funding under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title I Youth program with funds from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program to deliver a comprehensive program for at-risk youth that will utilize a tiered case management service approach. The Best Opportunities to Shine and Succeed (BOSS) program will serve 420 at-risk youth enrolled at six Broward County high schools who are credit deficient, who failed an End of Course (EOC) exam, or who have a documented behavioral problem. Case managers will work with participants to create and carry out an individualized service strategy that identifies the academic supports and services they need to complete high school. Each site will offer daily homework help and tutoring to prepare for EOC exams that will be supervised by a certified teacher. Credit recovery will be offered online two days a week, allowing students to earn high school credit for classes they failed during the regular school day. Career and technical education will be offered biweekly. BOSS also will support career exploration and employability skills development and provide entrepreneurial education and work experience opportunities. BOSS will offer the Teen Outreach Program®, YMCA Youth In Government Program ® and the goLEAD youth development and service-learning program bi-weekly at each site. The project also will braid funding provided under the Library Services and Technology Act to deliver support for investigating and pursuing postsecondary educational opportunities.
Chicago
Pilot Lead: Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (IL)
The Chicago Department of Family and Support Services will braid Head Start funds and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title I Youth funds from the Chicago-Cook Workforce Partnership to provide comprehensive services for young mothers and their children through a two generational model that addresses the education, employment and developmental needs of parents and their children. The Chicago Young Parents Program (CYPP) will serve 210 young mothers between the ages of 14 and 24 who have children under age 6 and who have dropped out of high school, postsecondary education and/or the workforce or who are at risk of dropping out. Children will be enrolled in Head Start or Early Head Start depending on their age, and will remain eligible for the program through the duration of the parent’s participation in CYPP. Each CYPP participant will be assigned a mentor who will lead weekly enrichment sessions for participants that will include social-emotional learning and cognitive behavioral therapy, conduct biweekly home visits using the Parents as Teachers curriculum, and provide other individualized support to participants throughout their participation in the program. CYPP also will provide participants with a paid, part-time work experience at a Head Start center and job training to prepare them to join the early learning workforce. Additionally, participants and their children will be brought together once a month for age-appropriate developmental activities.
Indianapolis
Pilot Lead: City of Indianapolis (IN)
The City of Indianapolis will provide comprehensive, concentrated, and coordinated services to low-income, disconnected youth ages 14 through 24 who reside within two public housing communities that are located in the city’s Opportunity Zone, a collective impact initiative modeled on the Northside Achievement Zone in Minneapolis, MN. Indiana Black Expo, a project partner, will provide two “connectors” who will each assist approximately 40 youth at a time develop individual service/success plans and access services from 40-50 public and private non-profit partners such as EmployIndy, the local workforce development board, and HealthNet, a health care provider. EmployIndy will blend funds from YouthBuild and the youth program authorized by Title I of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to provide employment and training services to participants. The project will braid funds from the adult program authorized by Title I of WIOA. Additionally, the Indianapolis Housing Agency will use Section III training funds awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide training services to public housing residents.
Eastern Kentucky
Pilot Lead: Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Programs (KY)
The Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), Inc., a local workforce development board, will work with Partners for Education at Berea College, and the Kentucky Highlands Promise Zone to provide services and activities to address the needs of 1,000 disconnected youth in the rural Southeastern Kentucky Promise Zone. The project will primarily serve: (1) at-risk youth ages 16 through 18 who are enrolled in school, with a particular focus those youth who are returning to school because the state's compulsory school age increases this year to age 18 and those in-school youth that are disengaged; (2) young parents with career or educational needs; and (3) youth ages 19 through 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor working. The project will implement career focused programs in the high schools, an early warning system to identify youth who are at-risk of dropping out, a Families and Schools Together program for youth parents, individual career coaching and advising, and work-based career learning opportunities (including internships and on-the-job training). EKCEP will blend funds from Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title I Youth, GEAR UP and Promise Neighborhoods and braid funds from Full Service Community Schools.
Baton Rouge
Pilot Lead: City of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouge (LA)
Baton Rouge will establish a coordinated infrastructure that will target disconnected youth ages 14 through 24 who attend specialized schools serving youth who are two or more years behind for their grade in the local public school system. Using a random control treatment study design, the pilot will serve a randomly stratified sample of youth and has two objectives: (1) to facilitate and strengthen cross-sector partnerships among provider agencies, industry/employers, elementary and secondary schools, post-secondary institutions, juvenile justice providers, and local government; and (2) to create intensive and individualized pathways to success in education and careers for disconnected youth. All students enrolled in the targets schools will participate in alternative education focused on accelerated learning with individualized instruction, as well as career and technical education, flexible scheduling, service learning, and low student-teacher ratios. Those randomly selected into the treatment group will receive additional individualized and tailored services and supports. The pilot treatment group will be guided into a career pathway by a school-based career coach. The performance partnership pilot will be steered by the Baton Rouge Partnership Advisory Council that will provide specialized knowledge and community advocacy in order to empower a partnership to reconnect youth for positive life outcomes.
Oklahoma
Pilot Lead: Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OK)
The Oklahoma Department of Human Services will implement a project that will assist youth in foster care in completing educational requirements for high school graduation, postsecondary education, and employment. Career academies, Communities in Schools, and Check & Connect are the evidence-based and promising practices in education that will be used in the project. The project will target youth in local public schools who are ages 14 to 18 and provide transition services after graduation for postsecondary education and employment services. An estimated 150 youth will be served by the project. The Department will braid funds from Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title I Youth and Adult programs, Now Is the Time Healthy Transitions, Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, AmeriCorps, and Chafee Education and Training Vouchers.
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo
Pilot Lead: Ysleta del Sur Pueblo (TX)
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, a federally-recognized Indian tribe, will use P3 authority to establish the Tigua Institute of Academic and Career Development Excellence to provide counseling and educational services to 85 youth between the ages of 14 and 24. A Wraparound Counselor will work with each youth to develop an Individualized Service Plan (ISP) of education and training services and supports, as well as coordinate the implementation of the plan. Youth also will participate in the Tigua Leadership Curriculum that will build the youths’ skills and help them successfully navigate through various systems to improve their chances of completing high school and pursing career and technical training, postsecondary education, or employment. To carry out the pilot, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo will blend AmeriCorps funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service with funding from a Library Enhancement grant awarded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
Seattle
Pilot Lead: Workforce Development Council of Seattle - King County (WA)
The Workforce Development Council of Seattle - King County (Council) will implement an innovative re-engagement strategy to achieve better educational and employment outcomes for 200 disconnected youth ages 16 to 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor employed. The pilot will include three key components: (1) strategic coordination of workforce development services with the state’s unique Open Doors policy, which provides K-12 funding for reengagement programs; (2) utilizing AmeriCorps members to develop a regional outreach strategy aimed at placing the hardest to serve youth in the region in programs that best reflect their interests and needs; and (3) advancing efforts toward a shared data system and common intake process that will enhance the coordination and targeting of services across the county. The Council will braid State basic education funding with Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title I Youth program funds and funding from a Reintegration of Ex-Offenders grant.