Summary
This report highlights promising strategies for serving youth and young parents across three operational frameworks: the service, organization and system levels. It shares lessons aimed at informing the efforts of practitioners, funders and policymakers who are invested in this work.
About LEAP
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™ is an multisite initiative that focuses on bolstering education and employment opportunities for young people ages 14 to 25. The particular demographic of young people served through LEAP have a history of systems involvement. Generally, this term refers to youth who have experienced foster care, the criminal justice system or homelessness.
LEAP Young Parent Cohort Partnerships
Three of the nine LEAP network partnerships made serving young parents a key part of their capacity-building agendas. These partnerships are located in New York (The Door); Minnesota (Project for Pride in Living with Hennepin Healthcare); and Nebraska (Nebraska Children and Families Foundation with statewide partners such as Central Plains Center for Services).
Over three years, these partnerships took varied approaches to adapt and change their work to support young parents, particularly those with a history of systems involvement.
Promising Strategies and Lessons
Readers will learn about several promising strategies and lessons demonstrated by the LEAP Young Parent Cohort partnerships. These include:
At the service level:
- offering individualized, trauma-informed support while also intentionally considering the needs of children and parents together;
- helping young people create meaningful connections with multiple staff members;
- prioritizing job quality for direct service staff; and
- documenting knowledge to persist within the organization.
At the organization level:
- shifting organizational orientation from an individual to the family to positively influence how well young parents are served; and
- establishing or strengthening navigational supports and interorganizational communication.
At the systems level:
- engaging across organizations and with policymakers to work toward addressing systemic barriers for young parents.
