Baltimore’s Promise Launches Expanded Career Pathways Program

Last May, Baltimore’s Promise — a grantee of the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion — announced Career­Bound, the next phase of its long­stand­ing Grads2Careers pro­gram. This edu­ca­tion and tal­ent ini­tia­tive builds upon the suc­cess­es and lessons of the Grads2Careers com­mu­ni­ty and aims to help young peo­ple devel­op mar­ketable job skills and begin lucra­tive careers.

“Over the last six years, I’ve watched Grads2Careers make incred­i­ble progress in con­nect­ing high school grad­u­ates to careers,” said Sara Coop­er, a senior asso­ciate with the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“Career­Bound is an excit­ing leap for­ward for this part­ner­ship and their col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts to build a school-to-career pipeline that works for both young peo­ple and employers.”

Cre­at­ing Bet­ter Oppor­tu­ni­ties for Bal­ti­more City School Students 

Grads2Careers began as a first-of-its-kind part­ner­ship between Baltimore’s Promise, Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools (BCPS) and the Mayor’s Office of Employ­ment Devel­op­ment (MOED). Found­ed in 2018, by April of 2024, the pro­gram had served 1,000 students.

But, accord­ing to Kate Wolf­son, senior direc­tor of Post-Sec­ondary Path­ways at Baltimore’s Promise, the suc­cess of Grads2Careers also high­light­ed the lim­i­ta­tions of the program.

“One of the things we learned in the first phase of Grads2Careers is that we need­ed to start sup­port­ing youth soon­er and go deep­er,” said Wolf­son. ​“Career­Bound is a col­lab­o­ra­tive pub­lic ecosys­tem-build­ing ini­tia­tive that strength­ens our foun­da­tion while incor­po­rat­ing impor­tant feed­back from our partners.”

The ini­tia­tive is made up of five focus areas:

1. In-school youth apprenticeships. Career­Bound will expand exist­ing youth appren­tice­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties with­in City Schools and con­nect young peo­ple with path­ways to careers in tech­nol­o­gy, advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing, edu­ca­tion, con­struc­tion, pub­lic safe­ty, busi­ness and finance.
2. Grads2Careers path­ways. More City Schools’ grad­u­ates who are not plan­ning to enter col­lege full-time with­in the next year will be con­nect­ed with jobs through free occu­pa­tion­al skills training. 
3. An alum­ni track for stack­able cre­den­tials. The Grads2Careers alum­ni track allows grad­u­ates of the pro­gram to pur­sue addi­tion­al post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion or cre­den­tials need­ed for increased wages.
4. Aca­d­e­m­ic acceleration. City Schools’ stu­dents — from ris­ing ninth through twelfth grade — and grad­u­ates will receive aca­d­e­m­ic, career and life skills devel­op­ment support.
5. Coor­di­nat­ed resources. All Career­Bound par­tic­i­pants will be offered wrap­around ser­vices, includ­ing men­tal health and well­ness sup­port, trans­porta­tion assis­tance, hous­ing, child care and more.

“Ulti­mate­ly, CareerBound’s goal is to cre­ate bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties for Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools’ stu­dents and grad­u­ates,” said Wolf­son. ​“When a young per­son starts their jour­ney toward a career that pro­vides a fam­i­ly-sup­port­ing wage, they’re best posi­tioned to fol­low their dreams and be who they want to be.”

Build­ing a Bet­ter Work­force for Baltimore

CareerBound’s new train­ing and career oppor­tu­ni­ties open path­ways to careers in high-growth indus­tries for cur­rent high school stu­dents and grad­u­ates. By 2030, it expects to assist more than 8,000 youth and young adults.

“This next phase rep­re­sents an even more refined approach to sys­tems build­ing,” said Wolf­son. ​“This means work­ing with stu­dents as ear­ly as ninth grade and adding enhanced wrap­around ser­vices, improved skills train­ing and even more employ­er partners.”

Career­Bound is also sup­port­ed by a $1 mil­lion Mary­land Works grant from the Mary­land State Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. The funds will go toward design­ing and build­ing infra­struc­ture for in-school youth apprenticeships.

“Career­Bound pro­vides a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to expand the orig­i­nal G2C mod­el,” said Don­nice E. Brown, MOED assis­tant direc­tor, chief of Youth Ser­vices. ​“As the work­force devel­op­ment agency part­ner, MOED’s role is to ensure young adults engage in train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that will expose them to emerg­ing high-growth careers that lead to finan­cial stability.”

“I am very excit­ed for how Career­Bound will enhance our stu­dents’ expe­ri­ences at BCPS,” said Eric V. Jef­fer­son, exec­u­tive direc­tor for Sec­ondary Suc­cess and Inno­va­tion at Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools. ​“This includes appren­tice­ships, Grads2Careers and oth­er wrap­around ser­vices need­ed to build a bet­ter work­force for Baltimore.”

Learn more about Baltimore’s Promise and its com­mit­ment to the city’s young people