Addressing the Need: The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative
The Initiative was designed to combat the bleak outcomes of youth leaving foster care and ensure that they have access to the supports and services they need to succeed. At its heart, the Initiative's approach is a systems improvement effort, not a defined program or a set of services. The experience of the demonstration sites suggests that five core strategies, working in concert, have the potential to dramatically improve the way in which communities and states respond to the needs of a particularly vulnerable group of youth and young adults. In addition, their experience suggests that public child welfare agencies can effectively use this approach to mobilize a wide variety of public and private partners and resources. In turn, state agencies, legislative bodies, and community groups can have the needed impetus and support to improve outcomes for youth in foster care and young adults who have transitioned out of care.
Working with communities in ten demonstrations sites nationwide over a six-year period, the Initiative tested a Theory of Change and a set of core strategies. The partnership between the Initiative and these ten sites has produced innovations and successes that are ready to be sustained and broadened. Data from these sites reveal promising findings related to youth and young adults and systems outcomes.
Although much is yet to be learned, findings from the demonstrations sites coupled with the above described factors reveal this to be a good time to replicate and expand thus approach. The Initiative has developed a co-investment approach that combines its knowledge and technical assistance with local resources. Over the next several years, the Initiative will continue to work with states and communities to improve opportunities for youth and young adults and gather evidence of this work's effectiveness.
Theory of Change
The Initiative is measuring success by gauging improved outcomes in the areas of permanence, education, employment, housing, physical and mental health, and personal and community engagement. In order to improve these outcomes, a community needs to have certain conditions in place:
- Young people are decision makers and advocates for themselves and others.
- Partners in public and private systems provide the necessary resources and support.
- Stakeholders use data to drive decision making, communications, and the documentation of results.
- Public will is galvanized by the need to improve outcomes, and policy is focused on the reforms necessary to improve outcomes.
- Young people have access to an array of opportunities that support them.
The Initiative has designed a set of core strategies and related activities to help create or support these conditions in communities. These conditions will maximize the impact of the community’s work on public and private systems, leading to better supports and increased opportunities, which, when accessed by young people, will improve their life outcomes.
To test its Theory of Change, the Initiative has formed partnerships with communities across the country to implement the core strategies and to track outcomes both in systems and among youth and young adults.
Our current sites are:
Connecticut; Florida (a partnership the Eckerd Family Foundation and Connected by 25, Inc.); Georgia; Hawaii (a partnership with the Geist Foundation, the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Atherton Family Foundation, the McInerny Foundation, and the Department of Human Services); Indiana (a partnership with the Central Indiana United Way, the Department of Child Services, the Richard M Fairbanks Foundation, the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Ruth Lilly Fund, the Central Indiana Community Foundation and the Indianapolis Private Industry Council);Iowa; Maine; Michigan; Nebraska (a partnership with the Nebraska Children and Family Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, the William and Ruth Scott Family Foundation, and the Department of Health & Human Services); Rhode Island; and Tennessee.
Click on the map below to find out the contact information, policy, data, news and events for that jurisdiction.
