D.C.’s Second Chance System

With the establishment of D.C.’s first Re-Engagement Center approaching this fall, DCAYA and our community partners have a growing interest in the need to align a robust re-engagement system to the frontline work of the Center.   A few weeks ago, DCAYA and the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region brought together national experts in youth re-engagement for a virtual, interactive Vonvo discussion with D.C. community providers.  The experts were Andrew Moore, Robert Sainz, and DC’s own Celine Fejeran.  The discussion highlighted three main takeaways.

Trusting Relationships

All of our guest experts touched upon the importance of trusting relationships in the success of strategies to reconnect youth to educational, workforce, and wrap-around service opportunities.  Echoing the findings of our 2013 Connecting Youth to Opportunities Report,   Robert Sainz emphasized the importance of approaching reconnection efforts by first recognizing that each young person has a story and a particular set of needs.  When adults invest in those individual youth stories through mentorship, coaching, or case management, both parties benefit.  Adults gain a clearer understanding of which packages of services will best fit that young person’s goals, skills, and needs.  Youth gain a trusted resource of support through challenges, guidance in setting goals, and a safety net in the case they veer off-track.  In considering national best practice, the exact model of this adult:youth relationship can vary, but the panel of experts stressed that it remains key to successful re-engagement.

Second Chance Systems

Our Vonvo conversation also underscored the practice of building second chance systems around the needs and demands of youth, which necessitates cross-sector collaboration and diverse stakeholders.  While a young person might be most strongly motivated to seek support in order to attain employment to support themselves and their families, in many instances they lack the levels of educational achievement to find self- and family-sustaining work. In response to the simultaneous needs for youth to learn and earn, Celine Fejeran spoke of the decision within the District to house our first Youth Re-engagement Center at the Department of Employment Services in order to streamline youth access to work opportunities and educational re-engagement.  Another critical advantage of cross-sector collaboration is the ability to gather data across various agencies to gain clarity on the specific circumstances of each young person’s experience that stymie sustained engagement.  As Andrew Moore mentioned in our conversation, this shared data about which young people have left school is also the best starting point from which to launch youth outreach efforts to connect them back to opportunity.

Community Connections

Our last key takeaway was focused on the need to encourage a symbiotic relationship between re-engagement centers and the communities they serve.  This applies to the ability of a re-engagement center’s youth outreach specialists to simultaneously build relationships with youth and strong connections to a wide array of wrap-around services.  Los Angeles and Denver are excellent examples of where this has been done well. On the flip side of this relationship is the opportunity for the influence of the re-engagement center to reach the youth’s friends, families, and caregivers.  If a re-engagement center can build these relationships as well, then the success of the re-engaged youth will have ripple effects throughout their communities.

Overall, the national experts and community providers agreed that this is an incredibly exciting and critical time for re-engagement efforts in D.C.  We all must stay invested and involved in the upcoming implementation of D.C.’s first ever re-engagement center.  We may not get a second chance.

Watch our Vonvo discussion here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6LpZEg98ZA  (full length)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQsdpJymHu4   (highlight)

Amy Dudas is the disconnected youth and workforce development policy analyst at DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. She’ll be meeting with youth providers this summer to discuss how to best link their programming with the District’s citywide plans to re-engage youth.  If you’re interested in these meetings, please contact her at amy@dc-aya.org.

A Re-Engagement Center On the Horizon for DC Youth

Excitingly, Washington DC is on the verge of seizing an opportunity to re-engage its 7,000 school dropouts in education - joining some 15 other cities in this pursuit. The innovative D.C. Re-Engagement Center, which has been in the planning stages for the last several months, is slated to fully open in the fall of 2014.

Re-Engagement Centers fill a critical niche for disconnected youth ages 16-24 by providing a one-stop location for assessment of education status, referral to one or more school completion options, and support to re-enroll and stay enrolled. Centers also conduct outreach to find the young people who need opportunities to finish high school and move on with their education. The National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education, and Families has documented that centers in 13 cities supported re-enrollment of more than 6,000 youth and young adults over the past two school years. 73% of these youth stayed with their new school placement for at least a year or graduated with a credential.

The formula for launching a successful center is both straightforward and complex. The latter, in part because public policy concentrates on ensuring the success of students who remain in school, and only rarely focuses on the 25%+ who do not.

For a citywide Re-Engagement Center, the straightforward portion of the formula involves:

• Leadership and support from the top, from mayors, superintendents, foundation executives, and leaders of workforce agencies and community colleges, as well as a clearly designated lead implementation agency;
• Newly identified or re-programmed resources, often stemming from the per-pupil funds districts recoup once students re-enroll;
• A youth-friendly physical or virtual portal – for outreach to known dropouts, and to welcome dropouts looking for options;
•  Staff with an orientation toward youth development, capable of building strong relationships with youth who have the most updated information at their fingertips about the range of referral options for education and non-academic services for disengaged youth; and
•  A range of alternative school options at which former dropouts can complete their education and get launched toward next steps in schooling and employment.

The District is following the success formula to an “R” (for re-engagement). The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME) commissioned a feasibility study to draw upon promising national practices and to situate plans in the local context. The Office of the State Superintendent for Education (OSSE) has stepped forward to serve as the lead agency. The Department of Employment Services (DOES) identified space for an initial physical hub location in its headquarters building in one of the highest-need neighborhoods in the city – thus co-locating education and workforce services. Together, DME, OSSE, and DOES are on their way to a well-functioning partnership. In addition, a working group of the Raise DC partnership that focuses on this population is actively exploring innovative virtual options to make it easy for tech-savvy dropouts to connect with re-engagement counselors and school options.

With so many pieces coming into place for scaled-up and purposeful re-engagement efforts in D.C., the future is bright indeed. District residents, youth advocates, and service providers can lend a hand to the project partners by sending young people to the Center once it opens. Innovators and education entrepreneurs can help tackle the forthcoming need for more high-quality school completion options, as current options will prove insufficient when re-engagement takes off.

And -- in a capital city where messaging is sometimes paramount -- launching the DC Re-Engagement Center will send a positive public message about the importance the District places on re-engagement. At the policy and institutional level, establishing a center represents a firm embrace of an “all students achieve” agenda, and affords an opportunity to maximize the return on investments made prior to the time that students dropped out.





Andrew Moore is the Senior Fellow at the National League of Cities' Institute for Youth, Education, and Families. The YEF Institute helps municipal leaders take action on behalf of the children, youth, and families in their community. 
  

For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook, SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.