The District of Columbia Youth Opportunity Initiative:
A Visit to Two Youth Opportunity Sites

An American Youth Policy Forum Field Trip — November 6, 2002

This field trip was organized by the American Youth Policy Forum and the National Youth Employment Coalition to learn about the implementation of the Youth Opportunity Initiative in Washington, DC. The trip focused on Workforce Investment Act Youth Opportunity Grant programming in Washington, DC, with visits to:

• The Latin American Youth Center Youth Opportunity Site, a program serving out-of-school youth
• The United Planning Organization Youth Opportunity Site, a program serving students with an after-school program

District of Columbia Youth Opportunity Initiative

Trip participants met with D.C. Department of Employment Services Youth Opportunity Program Director Michael Watts and D.C. Department of Employment Services Special Assistant to the Director Noel Meekins to discuss the implementation of the Youth Opportunity Initiative in Washington, DC. The D.C. Department of Employment Services (DOES) Youth Opportunity program was in its third year at the time of our visit.

There are five federally-funded Youth Opportunity (YO) Centers in Washington, DC, which provide comprehensive services to young people between the ages of 14 and 21, primarily out-of-school youth. Services include: tutoring; literacy instruction; technical skills training; dropout prevention programs, high school, GED or higher education preparation; job training; summer employment; internships; work experience; job placement; mentoring; life skills training; drug use prevention; mental health services; child care; transportation assistance; leadership development via conflict resolution, recreational programs, and community service opportunities with stipends; “drop-in centers;” and continuous follow-up of young people.

Seventy percent of the youth attending the YO Centers are dropouts, all possessing low skill levels (on average reading at the 6th grade level) and many only having completed eighth or ninth grade. The challenge is to work with this population in a holistic way. The DC YO model includes parents and community partners. Mr. Watts indicated the goal is to point youth in a direction that will lead to sustainable success. The DC YO Initiative has a two year follow-up and emphasizes long-term supports and success. “This is not business as usual,” he stressed. DOES chose community partners embedded in their local neighborhoods to ensure an integration of services. Partners offer a full complement of services and have well-trained staff.

Each of the six YO sites has an area of expertise. For instance, the Latin American Youth Center features the YouthBuild program, Friendship House has media training and food handling programs, and Link and Learn has a technology focus. DOES provides additional expertise and support to its partners. For example, DOES recently linked with the AFL-CIO to create the Building Futures Program, providing 60 youth with an introduction to the building trades.

At the time of our visit, Mr. Watts told us DOES was working to move the program to full-scale. This is a demonstration project, so a lot of reporting of data is necessary. This requires open communication between DOES and the Centers, which is achieved through regular monthly meetings both of Program Directors and of Case Managers. When the caseload reaches 1600 youth the initiative will be at “full capacity.” Thus far, the cumulative total for participation in the program is 1300 youth.

Maximum time spent participating in the program is anticipated to be two years, though some youth may take up to five years. After completing the program about half need further training and half are successfully placed in jobs. After placement (in an “outcome,” such as GED program, school, training program, or job) youth are followed for two years. So far, 26 graduates are attending college. In spring/summer 2002 the centers saw the first group complete the program.

Ms. Meekins described the D.C. Youth Opportunity Initiative as part of a larger system for all youth. Prior to the Youth Opportunity Initiative, the District of Columbia received School-to-Work funding. This brought together various stakeholders to create a vision for career education and youth development. She expressed confidence that the work of the Initiative would be sustained beyond the federally-funded grant.

The Latin American Youth Center YO Site

LAYC YO! Program Director Kumara Rama met with the group to introduce LAYC YO! which provides technical assistance to youth through a combination of educational classes, job readiness activities, computer classes, and recreational and cultural activities, followed by job placement and retention services. The program is designed to assist young people (ages 14-21) who live in targeted D.C. neighborhoods to prepare for and succeed in the workplace, improve their educational achievement and develop as citizens and leaders.

Latin American Youth Center Director Lori Kaplan met with participants to discuss LAYC’s involvement in the D.C. YO Initiative. LAYC pushed DC to apply for YO grant funding, seeing it as a wonderful opportunity to serve out-of-school youth. Two provisions of the YO funding, however, make it difficult to implement the program. First, the census track requirements are a burden. Youth otherwise eligible for LAYC YO Center services but living outside of an identified track are ineligible.

Secondly, the reporting requirements of the Youth Opportunity funding discourage long-term involvement with participating youth. LAYC’s philosophy toward out-of-school youth, explained Ms. Kaplan “is to keep them in, not get them out.” This causes tension with the reporting necessary for the “success” of the Youth Opportunity Initiative, which must show students exiting the program into “outcomes.” For reporting purposes, the incentive is to get youth in and out quickly.

Ms. Kaplan explained that the Latin American Youth Center model is very different from the Job Corps model. LAYC youth stay in their community while they work to change their life. Youth leave their community to live on a campus while in a Job Corps program. Also, LAYC does not have a “zero tolerance” philosophy, instead sticking with youth through ups and downs.

Because the weighted-student formula creates an incentive for high schools to keep youth “on the books,” LAYC has had difficulty obtaining timely information on which students are dropping out of school.

Ms. Kaplan discussed the desperate need for services for out-of-school youth in D.C. right now, noting that funding for programs serving out-of-school youth in D.C. is currently limited to the following:

• The Youth Opportunity Initiative (to serve 1300 youth)
• WIA, which is only just becoming operational for out-of-school youth (to serve 300 youth through one-stop system)
• Charter schools (to serve a few hundred more)

Ms. Kaplan argued we really need to be offering more for out-of-school youth. A lot of youth are dropping out of school because they are working dead-end jobs into the evening.

While at LAYC, the group spent considerable time discussing sustainability of YO programming and strategizing about creating continued funding for LAYC’s important work with youth. Ms. Meekins and Ms. Kaplan discussed the need for the Youth Opportunity Initiative to get on the radar map of City Council and DCPS Superintendent Vance. Ms. Kaplan also discussed the importance of securing permanent funding for the LAYC YouthBuild program, through a line item in the D.C. budget, a per pupil allocation, or an expanded charter for the LAYC Next Step Public Charter School’s charter that includes the YouthBuild program.

System-wide Coordination and Evaluation

Covenant House Director Vincent joined the group for a lunchtime discussion of evaluation of and partnering across the DC YO system. As part of this system-wide effort, DC Youth Opportunity Center directors meet monthly in separate meetings with:

• The Executive Directors from each center
• The Case Management staff from each center
• The Outreach staff from each center
• The MIS contact from each center

In addition to these meetings, DOES is using data reports to examine each YO Center’s progress, participation levels, enrollment levels, program offerings, and data collection, as well as providing regular feedback to the Executive Directors and Program Directors.
DOES Customer Service Representatives visit all sites regularly to examine program implementation and participation, provide on-site technical assistance, and serve as a regular resource to staff and participants.

The United Planning Organization YO Site

Trip participants met with staff at the United Planning Organization (UPO), which offers academic enrichment for in-school at-risk youth through the Youth Opportunity Initiative. UPO, the only Youth Opportunity site in D.C. that serves in-school youth exclusively, uses the Quantum Opportunity Program (QOP) model to serve at-risk in-school youth. Through the DC Youth Opportunity Initiative, UPO has served 80 youth so far, targeting schools and offering students from Ballou, Anacostia, Cardozo, and Eastern Senior High Schools small group activities in the after school hours. UPO case managers work with students in D.C. public schools.

Rhonda Muse, Director of In-school Youth Programs at UPO described the QOP Model utilized for their Youth Opportunity (YO-QOP) program. The QOP Model is intensive, as the program lasts four years and offers a broad array of services, including basic education, personal and cultural development, community service, mentoring and supportive services. YO-QOP activities are structured and scheduled to enable every youth to spend a minimum of 60 hours (five hours per month) performing YO-QOP activities per year. These are divided into three equal components: education, community service, and developmental activities. YO-QOP activities continue throughout the summer and school breaks. The program is personnel intensive, with one case manager for every 20 to 25 youth and each participant assigned to a specific case manager. An individualized development plan for each youth, covering the four YO-QOP years is updated annually. These plans serve as the basis for a written “contract” between the YO-QOP program and each youth. Case managers prepare monthly plans and progress reports for each youth.

YO-QOP case managers, who all have a degree in social work or education, oversee the direct delivery of mentoring, educational, developmental, and community service programming for students enrolled in the YO-QOP program. Case managers develop a mentoring relationship with each of the youth in their group. This relationship lasts for the four years a young person is in the program. Case managers go to heroic lengths to try to keep those who may lose interest actively involved in YO-QOP for four years. Each youth received individualized education assistance, beginning with remedial basic education as needed. The objective is to raise young people’s skills to grade level in the areas of reading, writing, math, science and social studies, while also enabling youth to complete high school and prepare adequately for postsecondary education or training. Education assistance consists of computer-assisted instruction, course-based tutoring, and assistance in applying to college. In addition to mentoring and education assistance, young people enrolled in the YO-QOP program are exposed to developmental activities (e.g., life-skills training and cultural activities) and community service opportunities.

As with other programs in the DC Youth Opportunity Initiative, youth involved in the YO-QOP program “earn” a cash stipend of $10 for each day of participation, delivered by a monthly check. In addition, upon completion of high school and entry in an approved postsecondary education or training institution, participating youth receive the total contributions from an accrual account into which monthly contributions for each hour of participation in the program have been made. The idea is to induce youth to continue participating in YO-QOP activities at a high level of intensity, to help youth accumulate funds for postsecondary education or training, and to teach money management, budgeting and saving for the future.

Students are recruited for participation in the YO-QOP program by advertising at the participating schools and by referrals of those at risk from principals and counselors. Initially, the program targeted students with GPAs of 2.0 or below, but this had to be raised after initial trouble recruiting enough eligible students given census tract requirements of the Youth Opportunity Grant. Sixty percent of QOP students complete high school and continue with college, 34% complete high school and enter jobs, and the remaining 6% “drop out of the system.” Of the 100 students currently served by YO-QOP, all are 10th or 11th graders.

YO-QOP students meet with their case manager and fellow students each day after school, spending four days per week at their school and one day at UPO to work with the computers and tutoring specialists. Activities vary based on student interests but are primarily focused on academics, with other activities—music, trips, bowling, etc.—interspersed.

In 2002-03, UPO has a $665,000 grant to serve 100 youth. UPO augments this funding with in-kind support, such as space. UPO YO-QOP spends about $50-75 per youth per week over an average of 25 weeks in the program, in addition to the $50 per week stipend.

Trip participants toured UPO headquarters, observing YO-QOP students in the computer facility briefly.

Larger Issues

In learning about the District of Columbia Youth Opportunity Initiative and visiting the two Youth Opportunity Centers, the participants and hosts raised a number of questions about implementation of the Youth Opportunity Program:

1. Are YO sites most successful when housed in community based organizations with strong community connections and/or experience working with youth? Participants noted the YO centers visited were housed in organizations well-poised to implement these program effectively. Both CBO’s had been engaged in youth development work and used YO funding to expand on already existing work with youth.
2. In what ways do YOG reporting requirements discouraging effective engagement with youth? Program directors expressed concern that reporting requirements provided an incentive to push youth out as quickly as possible. Program directors stressed the importance of long-term, deep engagement with youth, but were keenly aware of the requirement to show high numbers of youth placed in “outcomes.” Department of Employment Services staff indicated a push for quality outcomes for youth involved in the DC YO Initiative; but they, too, were working under pressure to deliver “good numbers.”
3. Do the YOG census track requirements make sense? Program directors indicated that census track requirements are causing headaches when otherwise eligible youth in need of services live at the “wrong” address. Organizations with various funding sources for their work with youth were able to accept youth ineligible for YOG supported programming using other funding, but this was exacerbating the already cumbersome reporting required.
4. Will the YO Program continue to be funded? Those involved in the DC YO Initiative expressed serious concern that this successful, but fledgling program might be already “on the chopping block,” even as they moved toward full implementation.

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