Creating a Seamless Web of Services for Youth

This report was prepared for DC Agenda. The authors would like to thank the project officer, Carrie Thornhill, and the rest of the members of the Children and Youth Interagency Action Team, as well as Jane Hannaway, Jacqueline Raphael, and Michael Puma of the Urban Institute for their input on this report.  Any opinions, observations, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of DC Agenda or the Urban Institute.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF), which many find convenient when printing.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Background of the Partnership

Major Initiatives of the Partnership



The Children and Youth Investment Interagency Action Team
The Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation
DC Public Schools Aftercare Program


Challenges and Future Plans

Conclusion

Appendices



Appendix A:  Structure of the Partnership
Appendix B: Trust Grantees
Appendix C: The Youth Investment Model
Appendix D: Trust Corporation Supported Programs
Appendix E: Partnership Involvement


References

Executive Summary

Outcomes for youth in the District of Columbia were quite poor during the 1980's and early 1990's.  SAT scores were well below the national average and the juvenile violent death rate was almost three times the average for the largest 50 U.S. cities.  To address this crisis, several important initiatives have been started, many of which focus on improving after-school activities for DC youth.   One such initiative is the DC Children and Youth Investment Partnership (CYIP, or the Partnership). The goal of the Partnership is to build a sustainable collaboration that changes the way in which youth programs are designed, managed, and implemented.  Specifically, it aims to improve outcomes for DC youth by increasing both the quantity and quality of services provided to this group. In this report we describe the background of the Partnership, three of its major components, some of the challenges it faces, and its future plans.

Our report is based on interviews with key actors, attendance at Partnership meetings, and site visits at affiliated initiatives.¹  We find evidence of good progress made by the Partnership in a number of areas identified in its early plans. The most notable achievements we witnessed were 1) the creation and development of the Children and Youth Interagency Action Team (CYIAT), which is the steering committee for the Partnership; 2) the creation and development of the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation (CYITC), which promotes the work of community-based organizations (CBO's) providing out-of-school-time services for youth in DC; and 3) an expansion of the Aftercare program, which provides the bulk of out-of-school-time services to DC youth through the DC Public School system.  In this report we describe each of these components of the Partnership in some detail.  This is followed by a discussion of the Partnership's constraints on funding, a major obstacle to collaboration, and future plans for the Partnership.  These include assisting with the reform of particularly low-performing public schools, increasing services for older, and especially out-of-school youth, and developing more sustainable funding sources. Finally, our conclusions summarize our findings and lay out more specifics on some of the challenges we see, such as the need for a centralized database on individual youth and a formal evaluation of the Partnership itself.

1 While we have attempted to maintain objectivity in the writing of this report, we feel it is important to note that the authors have been participating in the Partnership fairly regularly by attending meetings and providing input. In addition, at least one former Urban Institute (UI) employee now works at DC Agenda and another is the deputy director of the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation.  Other former UI employees work for the DC Mayor's office in various capacities related to the work of the Partnership.  It should also be noted that this is not an exhaustive description of this initiative, which is quite large in scope.

This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF), which many find convenient when printing.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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