READY NEWS
News & resources from the Forum and the field about collaborative work to get young people ready by 21.
In This Issue: Policy | SEL |   
Advancing the Collective Impact Movement

Karen Pittman, CEO & Co-Founder, The Forum for Youth Investment
"There's nothing so practical as a good theory."  Kurt Lewin (known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the U.S.) is right, but his advice takes us only so far. 

John Kania and Mark Kramer recently reflected on the state of the collective impact movement, in "Advancing the Practice of Collective Impact" . The FSG team gets high marks in my book for being consistently open to adapting their theory to better reflect practice.   Five years later, "collective impact" has permeated the waters in ways that FSG couldn't have anticipated or imagined. FSG has wisely opted to monitor but not try to control.  But the water level is undeniably higher. 

By any name used, those of us committed to sustained community change are now being held to higher standards and expected to demonstrate better skills. In some ways, the fact that FSG's initial theory had serious omissions (as noted by Tom Wolff in a recent critique, "Ten Places Where Collective Impact Gets It Wrong" ) actually helped galvanize consensus around the importance of not only acknowledging but accelerating community inclusion and a systemic focus on justice and equity. There's still much work to be done, but we are making progress.
 
I'm looking forward to talking with John on the Forum's upcoming Thought Leader Roundtable, 3 pm ET on June 23rd.  Join us.

Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth: Busting Silos to Make Government More Effective and Efficient
 
Congressional Briefing
Wednesday, June 22
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Washington, DC

Performance Partnership Pilots (P3) is a transformational policy innovation that gives selected local, tribal and state agencies unprecedented flexibility to use existing discretionary federal funds in new, locally-determined, evidence-informed, collaborative ways that are likely to achieve significant improvements in the lives of disconnected youth (i.e., 16-24 year-olds who are not in school and not employed).

Instead of holding sites accountable for undertaking a specific set of activities proscribed by federal policymakers, P3 instead hands the reins over to local, tribal and/or state agencies to develop their own approaches, providing them the flexibility to connect efforts previously fragmented by narrow federal funding streams. At this Hill briefing you will hear from the first round of P3 sites about their projects, early successes and reflections.

Please RSVP by June 17 to reserve your seat.
Learning in Action: Video Chat Series
"Learning in Action" is a series of monthly video chats to explore the lived experience of the practices that promote social emotional learning. Each month, the 30-minute chat will pair an expert practitioner with a young person in their program to delve deeply into one of the six Social Emotional Learning Challenge domains: Emotion Management, Empathy, Teamwork, Initiative, Responsibility, and Problem Solving.

Designed to complement and bring to life the SEL Challenge guide and tools, each chat will be broadcast live and include time for audience questions. The next session will be on June 22, and will cover Emotion Management, featuring expert practitioners and youth from Aha! and Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee. Register to get a reminder about this chat.
Youth Work Methods Training of Trainers

August 1-3
Seattle, WA
The David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality's most intensive course prepares participants to lead the 10 item-aligned Youth Work Methods professional development workshops. The TOT begins with 4 weeks of distance coursework comparable to a college-level course. Participants should expect to spend 6-8 hours per week on coursework. The TOT culminates in an intensive 3-day live workshop. Materials that participants receive include a binder with training agendas for all the item-aligned workshops as well as a set of 10 Methods guidebooks. Due to the nature and rigor of the course, experience with the Youth Work Methods as well as training experience is highly recommended.

National Mentoring Program Survey 2016
MENTOR, in conjunction with the Mentoring Partnership Network, is conducting a National Mentoring Program Survey, designed to gather information about the agencies that run mentoring programs and the details of those programs and the youth they serve.
The information gathered in this survey will play a vital role in supporting and expanding the mentoring movement, chiefly by helping MENTOR:
  • Improve their ability to raise public awareness about mentoring and increase investment in mentoring by the public and private sectors.
  • Better understand the needs and challenges of the field so that MENTOR can provide relevant tools, resources, and technical assistance.
  • Identify gaps in the services offered in communities, as well as underserved populations, so that the mentoring gap can be closed.
  • Support new research projects and rigorous evaluations that can demonstrate the impact of mentoring on both policy goals and the lives of individual children.