Opportunity Pathways

Who Are Disconnected Youth?

There is a youth crisis in America. Twelve percent of US youth (some five million youth between the ages of 16 and 24) are neither working nor in school. These young people are not “plugged into” the services and supports that exist to help them overcome barriers to education and employment. As a result, they more than likely never reach their potential and will cost taxpayers trillions of dollars in tax and social burdens.

Our Economic and Moral Imperative

It is not that these young people choose to be disconnected. The majority want to be employed and desire a post-secondary degree. However, there are too many barriers blocking their path to stable, living-wage careers. The result is a lifetime of instability in un- and underemployment, homelessness, and dependence on government benefits. The U.S. can ill-afford these disconnections. For every disconnected youth we fail, it costs not only the loss of a productive citizen early on in their workforce years, but costs taxpayers $1 million over that individual youth’s lifetime. The successful reconnection must be a national priority.

While programs do exist, they serve less than 10% of disconnected youth and they are limited in duration, disjointed, and hard to combine to create a long enough on-ramp back to reconnection.

What’s missing is the coordinated programming that can reconnect disconnected youth and provide them the runway and supports needed to get on a solid career pathway.

AmeriCorps’ Role

AmeriCorps programs have been proven to support professional success:

AmeriCorps alumni are more likely than the average American to attain a bachelor’s degree or higher.

80% of those who served say that AmeriCorps benefited their career path.

iFoster’s award-winning TAY AmeriCorps programs (for youth moving into adulthood) have shown that even the most marginalized of disconnected youth, foster youth, can find success and a springboard to self-sufficiency and professional careers through service.

“AmeriCorps Service has further confirmed my purpose in life and my reasoning for doing the work I choose to do. I have been able to grow and learn from this experience.”
– iFoster TAY AmeriCorps Member and Foster Youth

Through an AmeriCorps planning grant, iFoster undertook a study to identify the willingness and capacity of programs to increase the number of disconnected youth serving in AmeriCorps and the barriers that have prevented programs from engaging them. The study also analyzed programs that successfully engage disconnected youth as a significant portion of their corps.

The results? Only 6% of programs currently engage disconnected youth.
95% of programs would if they got the support they needed.

Path to Reconnection

What is needed to bridge the gap between “willing” and “able” is a series of supports for programs and for young people. iFoster proposes the creation of Opportunity Pathways, an AmeriCorps program focused on preparing and supporting disconnected youth for service.

Opportunity Pathways would prepare disconnected youth by:

Connecting with disconnected youth and plugging them into an employment pathway.
Training disconnected youth in job, life, and professional skills.
Connecting youth to needed resources and supportive services.
Matching youth to the AmeriCorps programs where they are most likely to succeed and achieve their career goals.

During the program, Opportunity Pathways would offer continued support by:

Providing ongoing coaching and professional development.
Providing cultural competency and trauma-informed training to staff at host sites.
Preparing youth for permanent employment including career planning, credentialing and post-secondary education, and employment placement.

Program Support

Opportunity Pathways supports AmeriCorps programs by:

Providing toolkits, technical assistance, and help with recruiting, training, and supporting disconnected youth.
Providing cultural competency and trauma-informed training for staff and host sites.
Providing disconnected youth-specific professional development curriculums, trainer guidebooks, and “train the trainer” trainings.
Funding and providing technical assistance on funding sources and strategies for blending and layering funding, including braiding federal funds.

Opportunity Pathways supports disconnected youth during pre-service year by:

Recruiting with disconnected youth and plugging them into an employment pathway.
Training disconnected youth in job, life, and professional skills.
Connecting disconnected youth to needed resources and supportive services.
Matching youth to the AmeriCorps programs where they are most likely to succeed and achieve their career goals.

Opportunity Pathways supports disconnected youth during service year by:

Providing ongoing coaching and professional development training to disconnected youth.
Connecting disconnected youth to needed resources and supportive services throughout their term of service.
Preparing disconnected youth for permanent employment, including career planning, credentialing and post-secondary education, and employment placement.

Join Us in Solving Your State’s Disconnected Youth Crisis

Opportunity Pathways AmeriCorps has the potential to transform AmeriCorps into a work experience to career pathway for our nation’s most vulnerable youth. Plugging them into programs nationwide not only serves as a stepping stone to careers, but also collectively impacts the economic engines for states, with more youth connected and reconnected to employment, post-secondary education, and careers.

This model has the preliminary approval of the AmeriCorps Agency, and we invite you to partner with iFoster to make it happen.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED:

Endorse the Opportunity Pathways AmeriCorps program. If your organization is in favor of the creation of this, let us know, and we’ll add you to our Wall of Supporters. A list of organizations who are taking the time to voice their support can be a powerful tool, and we would appreciate your endorsement.
Request a call about direct support opportunities. Would you like to learn more about how your organization could support this program with your time and/or finances? Do you have ideas you’d like to share on how we can make this program a reality? Sign up for a call with us, and we can speak with you about where we’re at and opportunities for next steps.
Join our community. Are you in an organization that would like to include more disconnected youth? Or maybe your organization currently includes disconnected youth, but you’d appreciate more training and support. iFoster is creating training materials and processes to help with this, and we’d like to share them with you. But even more importantly, we’d like to bring organizations together to the table to discuss tips, provide mutual support, and help opportunities grow. If you’d like to receive training materials and join a quarterly discussion with like-minded organizations, let us know!

To take the next step with any or all of these levels, simply fill out THIS FORM. Your actions could transform the lives of countless disconnected youth.