Webinar: Lessons from LEAP

On Sept. 19, the Casey Foun­da­tion host­ed a webi­nar shar­ing data and lessons from the first phase of Learn and Earn to Achieve Poten­tial (LEAP)™, an effort to boost employ­ment and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple ages 15 to 25 who’ve expe­ri­enced home­less­ness or been involved with pub­lic systems.

Watch the webinar

On the webi­nar, Louisa Treskon, of non­prof­it research firm MDRC, explored find­ings from an eval­u­a­tion of LEAP’s 10 local part­ner­ships, which have used two proven mod­els — Jobs for America’s Grad­u­ates (JAG) and JFF’s Back on Track — to help par­tic­i­pat­ing youth suc­ceed in school and at work. Treskon dis­cussed how partners:

• iden­ti­fied and recruit­ed young peo­ple eli­gi­ble for the program;
• adapt­ed mod­els to meet local cir­cum­stances and the needs of young peo­ple; and
• built cross-sys­tem part­ner­ships to bet­ter imple­ment pro­grams and inte­grate wrap­around ser­vices and supports.

The ses­sion also fea­tured Robin Gra­ham, pro­gram direc­tor of South Bay Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices, who shared lessons from her organization’s expe­ri­ences imple­ment­ing the Back on Track mod­el in San Diego Coun­ty, Calif., and a youth par­tic­i­pant who dis­cussed the ele­ments of LEAP most impor­tant to him.

Learn more about LEAP’s first phase