CHAPTER 11

The National Urban League

Framework to Support At-Risk Youth

Saroya Friedman-Gonzalez

Founded in 1910, the National Urban League (NUL) is a historic civil rights organization that aims to enable African Americans and other underserved communities to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power, and civil rights. NUL has local affiliates in 36 states and the District of Columbia. NUL’s model utilizes a hub-and-spoke structure, in which NUL plays a central role in essential activities such as leveraging and blending funding, maintaining and enhancing funder relationships, raising awareness, providing technical assistance and training, and managing contracts. As an intermediary, NUL can strategically align partners in order to serve participants most effectively. NUL can broker relationships among government, business, and nonprofit partners, provide the infrastructure required to manage multiple partners, create systems for data collection, raise funds, manage finances, and provide quality assurance. This model frees up community-based affiliates to focus on their strengths in offering program services, which is what they do best. NUL’s services are centered on five programmatic areas:

• Employment

• Housing

• Health

• Education

• Entrepreneurship

As one of the few organizations of its kind, NUL has been at the helm during the changing tides of employment programs from the turn of the 20th century until today. Whereas years ago the key to employability success was defined by perfecting a single skill set, today’s successful preparation is characterized more by a participants’ ability and adaptability. What it takes to prepare for today’s jobs has changed significantly, and developing strategies to promote lifelong learning is ever more significant. For example, to keep costs down, employers now have the option to outsource low-skilled labor abroad. This factor, combined with the rapid growth of the technology sector, has ultimately favored a more skilled and adaptable labor force. There are increasing demands placed on middle-skills workers and proportionally decreasing demands for lower skilled labor.

Through our local affiliates, NUL provides services to many entry-level workers and must answer two vital questions:

• How can one ensure that low-skilled and entry-level workers have a fair chance of competing and advancing in today’s workforce, where post-secondary training and degree attainment are the new norm?

• As a provider of services, how do we facilitate educational/training attainment when resources to promote this goal are both increasingly competitive and dwindling?

Accordingly, our programs must instill in our participants the importance of continuing education and lifelong learning processes to adapt to these changing labor markets. Given the importance of developing and refining skills over a lifetime of employment, youth employment provides an important foundation for adult success. NUL’s Urban Youth Empowerment Program (UYEP^™) is a signature program of NUL that provides a case study of a program targeting at-risk youths and connecting them to a cadre of services, ultimately improving their long-term educational and career prospects.

Urban Youth Empowerment Program

In 2004, NUL was awarded a $9.3 million grant by the United States Department of Labor to implement a multisite demonstration project targeted to adjudicated young adults and high school dropouts ages 18 to 24. This project became UYEP. The goal of UYEP is to deliver academic and career exploration and personal development services to young adults under the premise that early exposure to career opportunities ignites the desire for knowledge and introduces the idea of lifelong learning. Through carefully mapped out services built around work-related activities, young adults are enhancing competencies that employers want. In particular, disenfranchised youths benefit from the concept of lifelong learning, and early exposure to these services improves a young person’s prospects for ongoing development and credentialing.

Program Design

The program is based on the following theory of change: For every individual who participates in UYEP, there will be increases in long-term employment (unsubsidized); participants who were in trouble with the law in the past are less likely to re-offend and return to prison; high school dropouts attain their general equivalency diploma (GED). Participants exit the program with improved literacy and numeracy (evidenced via increases in their reading and math scores on standardized tests).

To achieve the goals inherent in the theory of change, UYEP offers mentorship, career coaching, and intensive case management activities, while also providing education and training. These elements are coupled with career-oriented assignments, such as summer jobs, paid internships, and service learning projects. The UYEP model includes six common elements that are often featured as best practices in serving adjudicated youths:

• Commitment to Rehabilitation: focus on rehabilitation versus punishment

• Continuum of Care: wraparound and personalized support services

• Integrated Education and Training: hard skills, soft skills, and work experience

• System Collaboration: partnerships with outside agencies to provide services

• Support Structures: mentoring, as well as strong and qualified staff

• Accountability: use of data to ensure ongoing improvement

The demonstration program began in 2004 with 15 Urban League affiliates that were selected by a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process. After initial years of piloting and evaluating, in 2011 UYEP was refined into its current model. Again, local affiliates were selected through a competitive RFP process. Under the current model, NUL and its partnering affiliates serve about 2,000 youths living in high-poverty, high-crime urban areas across the United States.

Current UYEP Model

The current UYEP model builds on best practices documented in NUL’s evaluation of the initial UYEP model. These practices include a focus on strategic partnerships with employers and public and nonprofit organizations that provide educational and workforce related opportunities; effective hiring of strong, committed youth-focused program staff; careful attention to the mental health and substance abuse service needs of participants, and linkage to effective services to address them; an emphasis on peer-based systems of outreach and support for program participants; and high-quality mentoring opportunities. These practices are based on the following four key youth development tenets that foster participant engagement and program retention:

• The opportunity for youths to build relationships with positive, caring adults

• A targeted educational and workforce curriculum that builds on youths’ interests and assets

• Exposure to stipend-paying, real-world opportunities to gain workforce skills

• Linkages to comprehensive community supports and services to address barriers to success

Twenty affiliates across the country currently implement UYEP. These affiliates ensure that enrolled participants are offered the minimum services described in the following subsections.

Recruitment and Outreach. Urban League affiliates develop formalized partnerships, through memoranda of understanding, with select agencies to recruit and serve UYEP participants. Some of the organizations that affiliates must partner with include the following:

• State juvenile and adult correctional agencies, in order to receive referrals of prisoners about to be released who plan to return to the target communities being served

• Local parole offices, in order to receive referrals of released prisoners who plan to return to the target communities being served and to collaborate in serving these individuals

• Local school districts and high schools, in order to receive referrals of non-offender high school dropouts

• Local drug and alcohol abuse treatment centers, in order to provide assistance to program participants in need of such services

• Local workforce investment boards, in order to provide access to employment services provided by job centers

Additionally, NUL requires affiliates to formalize partnerships with local employers, education and training institutions, and other community-based organizations to effectively serve and place participants. Prior to enrollment in UYEP, affiliates prescreen individuals to ensure that they meet eligibility criteria, including (but not limited to) the following: age 14 to 24 at the time of enrollment; residing or planning to reside upon release from detention in a target high-poverty, high-crime community; currently incarcerated in the adult criminal justice or juvenile justice system in a state or federal prison, or in a local jail or state or local juvenile correctional facility and will be released within 90 days of being enrolled in the program; a high school dropout; and expressing a desire to complete all UYEP activities. Eligibility is determined via a comprehensive intake and assessment.

Intake and Assessment. The core of the UYEP model is the comprehensive intake and assessment and individualized service planning offered by advocate counselors (ACs). During the intake and assessment process, each participant meets with an AC who conducts a four-step assessment process to determine any barriers based on education level, skills and career interest, and level of intervention.

Affiliates use information captured from various assessments to help participants create a detailed, customized Individual Career and Education Plan (ICEP). The ICEP documents short-term and long-term education/training and employment goals. It guides decisions on job readiness and skills training activities, as well as placement and retention strategies. ACs map ICEP goals against local labor market data to enable affiliate staff to match participants with targeted training assignments that align with real opportunities for unsubsidized jobs. As participants master skills, job developers work with participants to place them into apprenticeships and unsubsidized employment.

Orientation. Affiliates utilize a presentation developed by NUL to orient every enrolled participant to the program. This presentation includes a program overview, which describes UYEP goals and objectives as well as its employment strategies and services, restorative justice and service projects, available case management services, education and training opportunities, mentorship opportunities, available supportive services, dates of workshops and special events, and participant rights and responsibilities, as well as other key program information. During orientation, participants also receive a UYEP Policies and Procedures Handbook detailing the program.

Employment Strategies and Services. Under the UYEP model, placement is provided for youths who are ages 18 to 24 and out of school at enrollment. They are placed into long-term occupational skills training, post-secondary opportunities, the military, or unsubsidized employment. Thus, affiliate employment strategies and services include strategies such as job placement, transitional jobs, on-the-job training, subsidized jobs in both the public and private sectors, participation in conservation and service corps programs, and job readiness training. The emphasis is on placing participants in high-demand, high-opportunity jobs, in the following sectors: manufacturing, technology, health care, and construction/building trades. At a minimum, affiliates are required by NUL to implement a 2-week workforce fundamentals course. As part of the course, participants write an updated résumé, a cover letter, and develop a career pathway map. Job readiness workshops are also provided on a regular basis.

Education and Training. Affiliates provide a comprehensive set of interventions to address the varying academic levels of participants. Education and training services include integrating education interventions with career and occupational development and basic skills instruction or remedial education; assessing participants for learning disabilities; providing language instruction for individuals with limited English proficiency; tutoring; providing study skills training; and conducting credit retrieval. Affiliates also counsel participants on acquiring financial aid to attend college, take them on visits to local community and 4-year colleges, and help them fill out necessary application forms for college. Depending on the participants’ educational goals, they may be referred to industry-specific education, training and certificate programs that are delivered through a network of accredited community colleges and universities. By design, all 20 affiliates have strategic access to targeted vocational training and other post-secondary certification pathways. Affiliates also use ICEPs to outline prescriptive plans to help each participant improve their math and reading skills and to attain a high school degree, if applicable. Affiliates must place a high priority on helping participants obtain their high school diplomas or GEDs, and focusing on interventions to help them enroll and succeed in alternative schools, evening continuation schools, or GED programs.

Case Management. ACs serve as the participants’ prime contact, and ensure that participants receive training in financial literacy; counseling regarding criminal records, civil rights, and applying for jobs; and assistance in applying for federal benefits such as Pell grants and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for food stamps. ACs also assist community supervision officers in serving returning young offenders and in linking them to supportive services, transportation, housing, mental health services, and other social services.

Mentoring. Affiliates solicit mentors to work with ACs to implement cultural, educational, and career-specific activities to support UYEP participants. The mentors are adult volunteers who demonstrate an ability to understand young people’s perspectives and agree to support participants for a period of no less than 1 year. A minimum of 60% of participants are matched with mentors, and the assessment and matching process is incorporated into the comprehensive intake and assessment process for all young adults, including those in confinement. Affiliates offer both one-on-one and group-based mentoring, entailing no more than five mentees per mentor. Mentors must apply to be a part of UYEP, agree to participate in a 1-day training, and pass a background check screening.

Restorative Justice Projects. Affiliates must implement restorative justice projects that enable returning offenders to give something positive back to their community to make up for their criminal offenses. These projects incorporate four guiding principles: (1) provide a public good to the community, (2) provide tangible skills to the participant, (3) incorporate time for reflection, and (4) entail a public-awareness component. Restorative justice projects can include a direct service project with the community (e.g., participant interacts with elderly person); an indirect service (e.g., mixing cement that will be used to build a playground in the community); an advocacy project (e.g., participant raises awareness on an important community issue such as second chances for young adults with criminal history); or a research project (e.g., gathering data on eating habits as part of a nutrition course). Each type of project is associated with both concrete and “soft” skills, ensuring that service opportunities are effective in building specific workforce competencies as well as enhancing job readiness and appropriate workplace etiquette.

Post-Program Support and Follow-Up. Affiliates provide participants with access to follow-up services for at least 3 months after the ICEP goals are met. At a minimum, three types of post-program follow-up services are available to participants. First, the ACs schedule check-in calls with participants to reinforce the connection of the young adults to the program and its goals, express care and concern, and assess whether additional referrals are required. Second, affiliates schedule a roster of post-program workshops to facilitate the transition to less formal support. These workshops serve as “booster” sessions for some of the critical lessons of the program’s life skills, financial literacy, and social/emotional learning activities. Third, affiliates establish and facilitate an alumni network for former participants to speak with current participants.

Performance Management

To measure participants’ outcomes, NUL has developed the Urban League Program Data Management (PDM) Application based on CiviCRM,* which is integrated into its existing “I Am Empowered” Drupal** web platform. The program strategically aligns services and activities with pre-identified outputs and outcomes; pinpoints performance challenges in real time; and fosters best practices, learning, and peer collaboration. NUL performance monitoring activities also include monthly performance management reports on key quality and performance indicators, management meetings to critically review data and collectively solve problems, and participant satisfaction feedback solicited through surveys and interviews. PDM facilitates the collection of participant outcomes by recording details about each participant’s characteristics at the program start, including the content of barrier and skills assessments, as well as personal development and progress against goals laid out in the ICEP. By monitoring progress monthly, NUL has the ability to regularly identify areas of strength and weakness by program component, affiliate, staff member, and across participant characteristics. Monthly affiliate meetings provide an opportunity to share best practices, troubleshoot areas of weakness, and develop corrective action plans as needed. In addition to oversight by NUL programmatic staff, NUL’s board of directors monitors high-level indicators on a quarterly basis to ensure that the organization is on track to meet annual goals and contractual obligations. PDM also facilitates the collection of career pathways outcomes such as number of credentials attained and wage gains achieved. These data are used to determine which career pathways NUL should prioritize and target.

Program Impact

To assess the impact of the initial UYEP model, NUL contracted a third-party evaluator over a 4-month period (September to December 2009) to objectively capture information on what worked, what did not work, and what, if any, best practices or challenges contributed to the success or difficulties of the program. The formal evaluation process revealed that there were positive correlations between completers of the program and positive outcomes.¹

Program Participants

During the first 5 years, UYEP served 3,900 youths. Most lived at or below the poverty line (93%), were either black or Hispanic (93%), and had not completed high school (77%). A significant minority (39%) were ex-offenders (Exhibit 11-1).

Participant Outcomes

Some 2,300 participants completed the program. On average, each participant took part in three of the six program service offerings. Among participants whose predominant program activity involved workforce services, 20% enrolled in full-time post-secondary education, and 68% attained full-time unsubsidized employment.

Exhibit 11-1.   Urban Youth Empowerment Program participant demographics for the demonstration project (2004–2009).

Although some affiliates performed better than others, the overall percentages of program completers were high (Exhibit 11-2).

The recidivism rate for all program participants (including those who were accepted but did not follow up and received no services) was 7%. This implies that there is both a selection effect (those who completed the application process were already less likely to re-offend) and a program effect, since completing the program is associated with much stronger outcomes. In both cases, this is a dramatic improvement over national averages: the U.S. Department of Justice reports that 55% of all juvenile offenders are re-arrested within 1 year of their release.

Exhibit 11-2.   Urban Youth Empowerment Program participant outcomes for the demonstration project (2004–2009).

Conclusion: Why the NUL’s Hub-and-Spoke Model Works

The National Urban League serves as the hub of a national network focused primarily on education and employability. In the implementation of UYEP, NUL provides overall contract management, technical assistance support, fiscal oversight, and data management of the project. NUL also provides clarity and guidance on the program design, and convenes the various affiliates, serving to promote peer-to-peer communication and shared learning through sharing of best practices and lessons learned. In turn, the local affiliate organizations serve as the spokes by focusing on the provision of quality services to their participants, cultivating local partnerships to enhance program delivery, and ensuring that the goals of the program, as defined by NUL, are adequately met. Working together as hub and spokes, the Urban League has proven successful in raising the standard of living in underserved urban areas.

Effectiveness of the Hub and Spokes

Through structured program design and a standardized approach, NUL’s employment programs are delivered through our network of Urban League community-based providers across the country. Both the national hub and the local spokes have clearly defined roles in program delivery. NUL, in its role as intermediary, serves in the following functions:

• Contract management

• Program design

• Technical assistance

• Fiscal oversight

• Data management

• Ongoing resource development

Urban League affiliates provide job seekers in their community with a menu of services including the following:

• Basic job readiness workshops

• Financial planning and empowerment

• Health education

• Wraparound supportive services

• Tailored educational interventions

• Paid internships, community service, and summer jobs

• Meaningful restorative justice and service learning projects

• Mentoring

One of the key benefits to the intermediary model is that community-based organizations benefit from the extra support and efficiencies created through a single convener and administrator, while the local affiliates are more aptly able to engage and holistically serve participants, affording them a robust array of supportive services offered either in-house or through strong community partnerships. Intermediaries create economies of scale and ensure that participants are provided tailored and comprehensive services by community-based organizations.

The UYEP model provides an unprecedented opportunity to address the social adjustment needs of youthful ex-offenders. The development of strategies serves to decrease participation in gang activities through the provision of full-time program activities (often dual daily activities such as education and community service) that are infused with supportive services that included group and community-wide activities and outings, and involvement with adult mentors or program staff. Partnerships with faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, and local businesses provide opportunities for participants to be exposed to business operations and behaviors while in on-site community service work assignments; for many, it is their first exposure to this kind of experience. In addition, local businesses that cannot provide worksite assignments provide trainers to participate in World of Work workshops as well as donating goods. NUL has designed the program to allow affiliates significant flexibility to address participants’ varied education and work preparedness levels and local employment realities. The program is still in the process of recruiting participants, but we feel confident in our ability to achieve even greater impact, given NUL’s long history and expertise in serving youths and young adults.

Note

1. Gallup-Black, A., Feldbaum, M., Johnson, M., with Palmer, A., Nevarez, N., Dailey, C.R. & Smith, K. (2009). Turn Around Strategies for Youth At-Risk: Lessons from the Evaluation of the Urban Youth Empowerment Program. A Report to the National Urban League. New York: Academy for Educational Development (AED). http://www.iamempowered.com/files/2010/02/Executive-Summary_Urban-Youth-Empowerment-Program-Evaluation.pdf.

* CiviCRM is a free and open-source, web-based constituent relationship management software distributed under the GNU General Public License. For more information, go to https://civicrm.org/.

** Drupal is a free and open-source content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. For more information, go to http://drupal.org.