Lessons from the Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) Initiative

On aver­age, young peo­ple who expe­ri­ence child wel­fare, the jus­tice sys­tem and home­less­ness have high­er rates of dis­con­nec­tion from school or work than their peers. These young adults may have their edu­ca­tion inter­rupt­ed or strug­gle to get the cre­den­tials need­ed to earn a liv­ing wage and secure a steady job. Through the Learn and Earn to Achieve Poten­tial (LEAP)™ ini­tia­tive, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and our part­ner orga­ni­za­tions have col­lab­o­rat­ed on inno­v­a­tive prac­tices that sup­port edu­ca­tion and career suc­cess for these young people.

Although LEAP offi­cial­ly con­clud­ed in 2024, I hope the prac­tices devel­oped through the ini­tia­tive can con­tin­ue to inform the work of youth-serv­ing orga­ni­za­tions and sup­port young peo­ple for many years to come.

Help­ing Young Peo­ple Access Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Thrive

Young peo­ple need sup­port on the path to adult­hood. These crit­i­cal years can have out­sized effects on young adults’ future earn­ings, eco­nom­ic mobil­i­ty and over­all well-being. The need for strate­gies that sup­port all young peo­ple — espe­cial­ly those with sys­tems involve­ment — led to the cre­ation of LEAP.

Launched in 2016 by the Cor­po­ra­tion for Nation­al and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice and the Casey Foun­da­tion, LEAP’s part­ners in eight states helped sys­tems-involved young peo­ple ages 14 to 25 suc­ceed in school and at work.

LEAP part­ner­ships used two estab­lished mod­els to work with youth:

• JFF’s Back on Track: con­nects young peo­ple to post­sec­ondary edu­ca­tion and sup­ports them through the first year of college.
• Jobs for America’s Grad­u­ates (JAG): helps young peo­ple earn a high school cre­den­tial and get their first jobs.

The results were impres­sive. Accord­ing to a 2019 MDRC eval­u­a­tion of LEAP:

• Sev­en­ty-six per­cent of par­tic­i­pants in LEAP’s Back on Track mod­el and over half of all LEAP par­tic­i­pants went on to enroll in post­sec­ondary or advanced training/​certification.
• Thir­ty-nine per­cent of all youth con­nect­ed to LEAP found jobs and, of those, 68% main­tained employ­ment for at least six months.
• The post­sec­ondary attain­ment rate for LEAP par­tic­i­pants was on par with nation­al aver­ages for young adults overall.

In its eight years of imple­men­ta­tion, LEAP demon­strat­ed the val­ue of strength­en­ing career and edu­ca­tion path­ways and the pos­i­tive out­comes they yield for young peo­ple. It also helped many LEAP part­ners grow their net­works, improve youth lead­er­ship prac­tices and change sys­tems to bet­ter meet the needs of young people.

Four Lessons from LEAP

As I reflect on the inno­v­a­tive prac­tices devel­oped with and imple­ment­ed by our LEAP grantees, I want to high­light four key lessons:

1. Young peo­ple thrive when sys­tems work for them. LEAP grantees invest­ed in part­ner­ships that enabled them to build net­works of ​“holis­tic” sup­port for young peo­ple that extend­ed beyond paths to a career or edu­ca­tion. These part­ner­ships helped con­nect sys­tems-involved youth with resources like hous­ing, trans­porta­tion and child care.
2. Path­ways need to fol­low the lives of young peo­ple. LEAP part­ners rec­og­nized that young people’s expe­ri­ences enter­ing the work­force or pur­su­ing edu­ca­tion were often unique and influ­enced by oth­er pri­or­i­ties such as par­ent­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties, earn­ing addi­tion­al income or tak­ing care of their men­tal health. In response, part­ner­ships focused on devel­op­ing flex­i­ble learn­ing expe­ri­ences tai­lored to each young person’s needs. They also cre­at­ed strate­gies like the LEAP ​“pause but­ton,” which allowed young peo­ple to exit and re-enter the pro­gram as need­ed while still receiv­ing sup­port and resources.
3. Invest­ing in youth lead­er­ship mat­ters. LEAP part­ner­ships like the nation­al youth fel­low­ship pro­gram encour­aged young peo­ple to take on new chal­lenges and grow. We learned that engag­ing youth in LEAP imple­men­ta­tion improves pro­gram­ming and sup­ports the per­son­al devel­op­ment of young peo­ple. A core pri­or­i­ty of LEAP was to strength­en young people’s capac­i­ty as lead­ers and cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for them to design and lead change in their com­mu­ni­ties.
4. When it comes to scale, think out­side the box. As LEAP part­ner­ships sought to expand access to sup­port­ive path­ways to careers and edu­ca­tion, they learned to think cre­ative­ly about scale — and that achiev­ing scale means more than just increas­ing enroll­ment num­bers. Thought­ful­ly scal­ing LEAP path­ways required expand­ing into new loca­tions, train­ing staff as well as grow­ing state or local partnerships.

The LEAP ini­tia­tive offers a pow­er­ful reminder that when sys­tems align around the needs, goals and real­i­ties of young peo­ple, real progress is pos­si­ble. As youth-serv­ing orga­ni­za­tions con­tin­ue the crit­i­cal work of expand­ing access to edu­ca­tion and employ­ment, lessons from LEAP can serve as a guide, demon­strat­ing that with the right sup­port, flex­i­bil­i­ty and trust in youth lead­er­ship, all young peo­ple can access oppor­tu­ni­ty and achieve their full potential.

Rani­ta Jain is a senior asso­ciate with the Casey Foundation’s Cen­ter for Eco­nom­ic Opportunity.

Access the com­plete archive of LEAP resources and publications