Youth Opportunity Grants: Experiences and Lessons from the Sites

A Forum — January 17, 2002

Youth Opportunity Grants represent a major commitment on the part of the U.S. Department of Labor to serve youth living in high-poverty urban and rural communities. These grants provide both in-school and out-of-school youth ages 14 to 21 with a variety of employment, education, and youth development services. The Youth Opportunity Grants awarded in 2000 are funded at a level of $250 million a year. Currently, there are 36 Youth Opportunity Grants (YOGs) in 26 states with a combined enrollment of approximately 36,000 youth.

Lorenzo D. Harrison, Administrator of the Office of Youth Services in the Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor, began the Forum discussion with an overview of the program. The YOG initiative differs from traditional formula-funded youth programs in two fundamental ways: (1) rather than distribute a relatively small amount of money across the entire U.S., they concentrate a large amount of funds in specific high-poverty communities; and (2) rather than restricting eligibility based on family income, they are open to all youth residing in the target area. Harrison emphasized the importance of an additional unique and critical component of these grants: a two-year follow-up for each young person served.

The goals of the program are to increase the employment rate, high school graduation rate and college enrollment rate of both in-school and out-of-school youth. The program's target number for enrolled youth is 44,000, with more than 36,000 enrolled in its second year of operation. A challenge for the coming months will be to increase the number of out-of-school youth enrolled. The program's main focus is this group of young people; yet fewer than 13,000 out-of-school youth are enrolled to date.

Harrison discussed the importance of the two-year follow-up in evaluating the effectiveness of the program, and emphasized the importance of clear and accurate measures and data to support it. The Youth Office has begun simultaneously to develop a "world-class MIS system" and to evaluate the earliest grant sites. Because these sites are in early stages, the evaluations are focusing on intermediate outcomes, such as participation rates and completion rates.

Vincent Gray, Executive Director of Covenant House, one of five centers that operate under the Washington, DC Department of Employment Services YOG Grant, described his program. The total area for all five centers encompasses approximately 8300 young people between ages 14-21. Covenant House has enrolled 996 young people in the first year, including 636 out-of-school youth. The risk factors for these youth are substantial: high school dropout rates of 60-65%, unemployment rates of 50%, teen pregnancy rates of 20%, and child abuse and neglect rates of 27%. Virtually all of them have been affected directly or indirectly by substance abuse.

Covenant House works in partnership with a variety of organizations that assist in providing support services such as mentoring, pre-high school dropout intervention, and creative opportunities for careers. Services include education -- ranging from basic literacy (the average reading level of the group is 2nd-3rd grade) to GED assistance and SAT preparation -- life skills, wellness and well-being, leadership development, employment development, and other supports for housing, onsite childcare and transportation. Gray concluded his remarks by introducing two young people from the Covenant House program, Tamika Morris and Marcus Piper, who presented an engaging and moving video of the program: "We Have A Story to Tell".

Toyce Newton, Executive Director of the Arkansas-based Phoenix Youth and Family Services, Inc. described the implementation of the YOG in a rural area. Southeastern Arkansas is characterized by unemployment rates that are double the state and national average. More than 33% of the population is under 18 years old, 10% of teenaged girls will become pregnant, and 90% of female-headed households live below the poverty level. Fifty-four percent of the out-of-school population has not completed high school, forecasting a potentially seriously undereducated workforce. Ms. Newton emphasized that the significant levels of funding from this grant offer a unique opportunity both to address the needs of young people and also to assist the community in moving towards its goal of reversing the economic decline of the area and the consequent departure of its young people. The new resources have provided incentives for the formation of partnerships and collaborations between individuals, agencies and small and medium-sized companies that have not always found common ground for working together.

Robert Sainz, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Youth Opportunity Movement, echoed Ms. Newton's comment that the size of the youth opportunity grants offers a "once in a decade" opportunity to invest in the most needy group of youth, who normally have no choice between school and the street. The Los Angeles grant focuses on the communities of Boyle Heights and Watts. By the end of 2001, the program had enrolled 2200 young people of the 2800 who were contacted. The average age of the group is 17 and the average reading level is at 7th grade. The program already has moved 350 enrollees into post-secondary education and 200 into part-time or fulltime employment. Partnerships with employers foster internship and job opportunities, subsidized jointly by the program and the employer.

Sainz agreed with Ms. Newton that the grant's significant funding levels were a catalyst for discussion and collaboration among agencies that traditionally do not work together. The Los Angeles Probation Department oversees 50,000 youth under the age of 18, a large number of whom are from Boyle Heights and Watts. With the offer of funds, the LA YOG program successfully initiated discussions with this agency, the LA Unified School District and the city government to address jointly the challenges that these young people will face before they are released.

The LA program also has established an Internet-based system for its operation, requiring heavy initial investments in technology, including new hardware and software, DSL connection and networking capability. This system helps to foster collaboration with community partners and to perform cross-site case management using the city's internet-based case management system (ISIS).

Lorenzo Harrison concluded the Forum's discussion, describing some of the key challenges. Foremost among these is the challenge to develop the YOG program to a level of efficiency equal to the standard of the Job Corps program, in order to win the public support and patience necessary to give the youth opportunity grant program time to "work out the kinks" and mature.

The early returns from the YOG sites demonstrate the importance of partnerships, links with families and communities and the significant and longer-term funding levels of this program. As these sites mature and are evaluated, they promise to provide guidance and lessons learned to all planners and providers of youth services.

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