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About Us
The Organization
The Need
There are approximately 100,000 young people between 16 and 21 who are about to leave, or have already left, foster care.
Most 18-year-olds coming from intact families can expect emotional and financial support for years to come, but once a foster child turns 18 the state is no longer legally obligated to provide any assistance.
Studies have demonstrated that 4 years after leaving care: 25 percent of youth who were in care have been homeless, just 46 percent have graduated from high school, 42 percent have become parents themselves, and fewer than 20 percent are self-supporting.
Mission
As a national foundation, the mission of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative is to bring together the people, systems and resources necessary to assist youth leaving foster care make successful transitions to adulthood through: making grants, providing technical assistance, and advocating for improved policies and practices. The Initiative is working in ten demonstration sites: Atlanta, Georgia; Hartford/Bridgeport Connecticut; Denver/Front Range, Colorado; Des Moines, Iowa; Maine; Detroit/Wayne County and Northern Michigan; Nashville, Tennessee; Rhode Island; San Diego, California; and Tampa, Florida
Vision
The Initiative's vision is for all young people leaving foster care to make successful transitions to adulthood. The Initiative is measuring success by improved outcomes in education; employment; housing; physical and mental health; and personal and community engagement.
Making Grants
The Initiative makes grants to demonstration sites that are implementing the Initiative's Theory of Change. It is in these communities that we are learning how to most effectively create opportunities and improve outcomes for this specific vulnerable population. Our national leverage and influence is derived from the efforts and learnings of our demonstration sites.
The Initiative also makes grants to other national organizations that are seeking to impact the transitioning-youth foster care population. Through these grants, the Initiative creates national partnerships to improve policies and practices at the state and federal levels; and to develop and support youth advocacy and technical assistance that is critical to communities.
Providing Technical Assistance
The Initiative provides access to the ideas, people, skills, effective examples and learning opportunities sites need to expand opportunities for young people. Sites receive customized technical assistance based on their needs and available resources. The Initiative also brings together the ten sites for convening’s, workshops and trainings that are specifically focused on improving implementation of the site-level strategies. And because much of the expertise being developed resides in the sites, the Initiative facilitates ongoing peer-to-peer learning through list-serves, conference calls, and peer matches. Evidence-based and promising practices are gleaned from these technical assistance activities and shared among the sites and with the broader field.
Advocating for Improved Policies and Practices
The Initiative advocates for improved policies and practices that impact youth leaving foster care. Along with national partners, the Initiative raises awareness through presentations and by sponsoring events. Products to inform policy makers and practitioners are published and widely distributed.
Our Work
Theory of Change
The Initiative's Theory of Change posits that there are four critical conditions that must be present in the community, which, when activated, will work to support the creation and/or expansion of these opportunities:
- young people actively engage in developing and advocating for opportunities;
- systems partners, both public and private, actively engage in creating opportunities;
- research and communications efforts consistently document results and identify and disseminate best practices; and
- public will and policy are galvanized and better focused on needed reforms.
Each condition, by itself, has some potential for stimulating needed enhancements. The Initiative believes that all four conditions, working in combination, can maximize the scale of their impact on public and private systems. This impact will create and/or expand opportunities for young people.
Those new and expanded opportunities will, in turn, enable the young people who access them to achieve improved outcomes in the areas of employment, education, physical and mental health, housing, and personal and community engagement. To download the Initiative’s logic model, click here (PDF, 55KB).
Implementation
To test the Theory of Change, the Initiative is partnering with the demonstration sites that are implementing five core strategies:
- Youth Engagement: Developing the skills and leadership techniques of young people so that they are meaningfully involved in all aspects of implementation, and become advocates for themselves and others.
- Partnerships and Resources: Bringing together key local decision-makers who take responsibility for leveraging public and private resources to provide increased opportunities for young people in foster care.
- Research, Evaluation and Communications: Documenting results, and identifying and disseminating evidenced-based and promising practices.
- Public Will and Policy: Galvanizing public will in order to influence local and state policies and practices to increase opportunities for young people leaving foster care.
- Increased Opportunities: Organizing resources and creating opportunities for young people leaving foster care through the Opportunity Passport™.
The Opportunity Passport™ is a package of resources that helps young people make a successful transition to adulthood that includes:
- Personal bank account for short-term expenses and instant cash;
- Matched savings account (or IDA for asset-building); and
- Door openers, which are opportunities developed on a local basis (e.g., expedited access to job training or adult education courses).
For more information about the Opportunity Passport™, click here (PDF, 109 KB).
Permanence is a goal for all young adults in, leaving or formerly in foster care. Research suggests that having a permanent supportive relationship with, and feeling connected to, a caring adult matters in the long-and short-term well-being of youth and young adults. Our vision is that every young adult leaving foster care has a safe, enduring relationship that lasts a lifetime.
Board of Trustees
The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative Board of Trustees is comprised of three members from The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs and the Executive Director of the Initiative. The members are:
William C. Bell, President and Chief Executive Officer of Casey Family Programs
Douglas W. Nelson, President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Sharon L. McDaniel-Lowe, Founder, President, and CEO of A Second Chance, Inc.
Joseph R. Moderow, retired Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs, UPS
Gary J. Stangler, Executive Director of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative
Calvin E. Tyler, Jr., retired Senior Vice President of Operations, UPS
Robert (Bob) Watt, Vice Chair of the board, The Seattle Foundation
The Staff
Sherry Amen
Administrative Associate
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Kent Berkley
Senior Associate Director
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Dennis Braziel
Senior Associate Director
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Leonard Burton
Chief Operating Officer
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Jim Hoke
Chief Financial Officer
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Deborah Kestermont
Administrative Associate and Receptionist
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Carla A. Owens
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
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Liz Squibb
Associate Director—Operations
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Gary J. Stangler
Executive Director
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Barbara Toth
Administrative Associate
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For site consultants or more information about the Initiative's staff, please Contact the Initiative >>
History
The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative is a collaboration between Casey Family Programs and The Annie E. Casey Foundation, two of the leading foundations focused exclusively on child, youth and family well-being.
Casey Family Programs
Casey Family Programs' mission is to provide and improve–and ultimately to prevent the need for–foster care. Established by United Parcel Service founder Jim Casey, the Seattle-based national operating foundation has served children, youth, and families in the child welfare system since 1966. (www.casey.org). The organization is based in Seattle, Washington.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable organization dedicated to fostering public policies, human service reforms and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today's vulnerable children and families. The Foundation makes grants that help create innovative, cost-effective responses to these needs, and through Casey Family Services, provides direct services that advance both positive practice and sound public policy (www.aecf.org). The organization is based in Baltimore, Maryland. For their work locations, click here.
The Initiative was created in 2001 to focus specifically on youth in, leaving and formerly in foster care. We are named after the founder of the United Parcel Service (UPS), Mr. Jim Casey, who not only helped revolutionize package delivery, but also improved the prospects of millions of America's children by founding several of the nation's leading child welfare-oriented foundations. Click here for more information about Jim Casey and our Casey Connections.
FAQs
What population does the Initiative support?
The Initiative aims to improve the outcomes for the 100,000-plus young people in the United States between the ages of 14 and 23 who are about to leave, or already have left, the foster care system.
Why is this Initiative needed?
Traditionally, communities have expected government to help young people transitioning out of foster care, but governments have given these youth too low a priority. Youth in foster care suffer from significantly higher rates of incarceration, homelessness, school drop-out, unemployment, unwanted pregnancy, and lack of access to health care. The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative helps communities transform the way they view their responsibility to youth in foster care.
What is the relationship between The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative and The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Casey Family Programs?
The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative was founded by The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Casey Family Programs, and is jointly funded by The Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Marguerite Casey Foundation, which was founded by Casey Family programs in 2001. A board of directors is comprised of three members from The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Casey Family Programs, and one member from the Initiative.
What specific activities will the Initiative be supporting?
The Initiative supports successful community-based efforts to create opportunities and build assets for youth leaving foster care through grants, technical assistance, and coalition-building with multiple stakeholders. It supports youth engagement through the formation of local youth leadership boards and a national Jim Casey Youth Leadership Board. The Initiative also exerts national leadership on the issue of young people leaving care, creates a new electronic network connecting youth in foster care to resources and each other, and disseminates promising practices about youth transitioning out of foster care.
Why do you think youth engagement will improve outcomes?
The evidence all points in this direction: there's more success for young people and the community if youth take control of their own lives. We are helping young adults develop the skills they need to be in control and to become leaders in the community. Research from the University of Wisconsin, among other schools, shows that involving young people in their own transitions improves their sense of mastery, health, and compassion, and enhances the perception by adults of young people's competence.
Does the Jim Casey Initiative make grants?
We have made, and will continue to make, a very select number of grants to support collaborative efforts to create opportunities for young people leaving the foster care system. For more information about our grant-making strategy, see our Communities page.
Do you accept grant applications?
We do not accept unsolicited grant applications.
Will the Initiative be providing direct services to young people?
No. The Initiative provides grants and technical assistance to state and community-based organizations and other groups engaged in direct services.
When did the Initiative begin?
The Initiative was approved by The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Casey Family Programs on May 1, 2001. After a planning process, the Initiative began operations in Fall 2001.
How will the Initiative measure success?
The Initiative is using improved outcomes for young people as the key measure in determining its success. It will select a number of benchmarking and tracking measures in order to gather accurate and useful data about the work.
