Resources & Publications: Youth of Color
- Apr 03, 2013 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Bryant Taking Aim at Gun Violence: Rebuilding Community Education and Employment Pathways In a single generation, our nation is faced with the prospect of losing over 132,000 black men and boys to gun violence. Moreover, for every black male who dies from gun violence, there are another 24 others who suffer non-fatal injuries - making the impacts of such violence even greater. In black communities, gun violence is about far more than reforming gun control laws and empowering law enforcement. Gun violence for young black males predominates in communities where residents live in concentrated disadvantage with high rates of unemployment, school dropout, and poverty. The absence of opportunities in these communities gives rise to criminal activity and the loss of too many young lives. Solving the crisis of gun violence in communities requires that America address the issue of concentrated poverty and geography. The rebuilding and strengthening of these communities through creating infrastructure to provide improved education and employment opportunities for black youth will significantly reduce issues of gun violence. Read Online | Download PDF | Additional PDF
- Feb 19, 2013 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Bryant, Linda Harris, Kisha Bird Investing in Boys and Young Men of Color: The Promise and Opportunity Boys and young men of color in the United States face challenges in the areas of education, employment, and health. In the last several years, there has been greater focus on understanding these challenges and identifying potential solutions. While we know more about effective programmatic solutions, we still have much to learn about the systemic barriers that impede the success of males of color. Effecting policy changes in these areas will produce sustainable gains for boys and young men of color. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation commissioned CLASP to conduct a scan of these policy opportunities to inform the development of their Forward Promise Initiative. Read Online | Download PDF
- Dec 21, 2012 Keeping Connected Youth Newsletter - December 2012 This periodic update for the field is a part of CLASP's ongoing work to advance policy and practice that will dramatically improve the education, employment, and life outcomes for youth in communities of high youth distress. It highlights policy happenings in education, training and youth development that impact black male achievement.
- Aug 30, 2012 | Ivory Toldson & Candice Crowell CLASP Middle School/High School Boys of Color Policy Scan and Information Gathering This report is a summary of the findings from over 500 online and telephone surveys with local practitioners and national experts in the area of boys and young men of color. They shared perspectives on which issues were most pressing in the areas of education, employment, and health as well as solutions for moving the work forward more effectively in communities. Download PDF
- Aug 30, 2012 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Bryant Education and Employment Pathways for High School Males of Color Summary of roundtable discussion with national experts on strengthening education and employment pathways for males of color in high school. Download PDF
- Aug 30, 2012 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Bryant Education and Employment Pathways for Out-of-School Males of Color Summary of roundtable discussion with national experts on creating education and employment pathways for out-of-school males of color. Download PDF
- Aug 30, 2012 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Bryant Education and Pathways to Employment for Middle School Boys of Color Summary of roundtable discussion with national experts on improving education outcomes and pathways to employment for boys of color in middle school. Download PDF
- Aug 30, 2012 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Bryant Health for Boys and Young Men of Color Summary of roundtable discussion with national experts on issues of health for boys and young men of color. Download PDF
- Jun 27, 2011 | CLASP Youth Policy Team Reconnecting The Disconnected: Leveraging Federal Policy & Local Practice To Expand Education & Labor Market Opportunity For Youth CLASP's youth policy work aims to advance policy and practice that will dramatically improve the education, employment, and life outcomes for youth in communities of high youth distress. Download PDF
- Mar 22, 2011 WEBCAST - We Dream a World: Re-Imagining the Landscape for Black Men and Boys Webcast of an event to advance the vision and policy solutions presented in the "We Dream A World" report, released December 2010. This event was jointly sponsored by CLASP and the 2025 Campaign for Black Men and Boys. It was the second in CLASP's 40th anniversary policy series, Policy and Promise for Low Income People in America. Read Online
- Jan 24, 2011 | Kisha Bird (Campaign for Youth) Input for a Strategic Plan for Federal Youth Policy: Comments to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services The Campaign for Youth believe's a Strategic Plan for Federal Youth Policy must effectively support the outcomes of youth living in communities of high youth distress, youth of color, and those disconnected from the mainstream. Our comments and recommendations relate specifically to ensuring the needs of disconnected and high needs youth are adequately addressed. Download PDF
- Dec 09, 2010 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt We Dream A World: The 2025 Vision for Black Men and Boys This compelling new report presents a broad social and political strategy to drastically change outcomes for young black boys who will come of age in the year 2025. It is the product of five years of research and brainstorming by a diverse set of scholars, researchers and other thought leaders in the African American community. Download PDF
- Nov 30, 2010 | Linda Harris Building Pathways to Postsecondary Success for Low Income Young Men of Color: A Community Intervention Strategy Building postsecondary pathways to good jobs for low-income young men of color will require stretching the paradigms of our secondary, postsecondary, workforce, and adult education systems, as well as greater collaboration among these systems. Aligning systems and programming across funding streams, building partnerships, and creating new pathways are complex endeavors. But there are many innovative approaches that have shown promise and can be implemented and taken to scale. Download PDF
- Nov 30, 2010 | Linda Harris & Amy Ellen Duke-Benfiled Building Pathways to Postsecondary Success for Low-Income Young Men of Color Linda Harris, director of youth policy, and Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield, senior policy analyst, co-authored a chapter in the recently published book Changing Places: How Communities Will Improve the Health of Boys of Color. The book "draws attention to the urgent need--both economic and moral--to better understand the policy and community-based factors that serve as opportunities or barriers for young men and boys of color as they make critical life decisions." Ms. Harris and Ms. Duke-Benfield's chapter examines why it is essential to invest access to postsecondary education opportunities for young men of color. Download PDF
- Jun 09, 2010 | Kisha Bird If Not Now, Then When? Congressional Opportunities to Address Our Nation's Youth Unemployment Crisis This presentation outlines the state of the youth unemployment crisis. Download File
- Mar 25, 2010 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Reauthorizing ESEA: Considerations for Dropout Prevention and Recovery American school districts are losing the battle to successfully educate a large number of the nation's youth. The reauthorization of ESEA is a prime opportunity to rethink how we can strengthen our commitment to reconnect with youth who have left school without receiving their diploma. These comments, submitted to the US House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, focus on how to amend ESEA to ensure that struggling students and high school dropouts have access to systems, support, and funding to remain in school or re-enter the educational system and attain a viable education that prepares them for post secondary opportunities and success in careers. Download PDF
- Mar 09, 2010 | Sara Hastings, Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt, and Linda Harris Building a Comprehensive Youth Employment Delivery System: Examples of Effective Practice Many communities have shown tremendous commitment to youth employment. The return on investment and effort, however, can be greatly multiplied if federal youth funds, discretionary funding, resources from other youth serving systems, and community resources are brought together to build comprehensive youth employment system. Key elements of such a system include: a strong convening entity, an effective administrative agent, a well-trained case management arm, strong partnerships across systems that serve youth, and high quality work experience and career exposure. Download PDF
- Mar 09, 2010 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt, Linda Harris, and Kisha Bird Follow the Money: Funding and Legislative Opportunities on the Horizon for Communities to Serve Disconnected Youth Several pieces of legislation have been proposed or passed that present opportunities to fund programs in communities to keep young people connected to school and recapture those who have fallen by the wayside. Most of these resources, however, are from competitive funding streams which will require communities to demonstrate innovative practice in planning and implementation. Communities need to be aware of these potential opportunities very early in the process in order to plan strategically and create partnerships to program at-scale and meet the needs of their disconnected youth. Download PDF
- Mar 05, 2010 | Kisha Bird (CFY) and CCRY Network Building on the Legacy of Youth Opportunity: Implications for Federal Policy For young people who live in communities plagued by high dropout rates, high youth unemployment rates, greater incidence of juvenile crime, violence, and gang activity, the prospects are bleak and there are few pathways to education, work and responsible citizenship for those disconnected from work and school. Fortunately, we have a roadmap for reaching out to, reconnecting and providing opportunities to disconnected youth. Agencies and organizations that serve youth who are disconnected from school and employment are increasingly working together using a systems approach that improves outcomes and reduces the gaps in services and supports that can occur in more fragmented systems. In the first half of last decade nearly 100,000 disadvantaged and disconnected youth nationwide were able to continue or complete their education and enter the workforce thanks to Youth Opportunity Programming. Unfortunately, funding was discontinued in 2005, and in the ensuing years federal funding for comprehensive youth programming continued to decline despite this being the most difficult economic environment since pre-World War II for the nation's youth. This paper outlines the key lessons of the Youth Opportunity Experience and building on existing strength, experience, and capacity describes its implications for current federal policy, including the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Download PDF
- Sep 03, 2009 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt & Linda Harris Community-wide Systems That Promote High School Completion Youth develop across multiple domains that are relevant to academic success. While schools focus primarily on cognitive development, many of the supports young people receive in other developmental areas come from community-based out-of-school programming. Stimulation of development in these additional key areas builds skills that support connections to school and achievement. This article explores the need for a community-wide approach to support dropout prevention for struggling youth and re-engagement of disconnected youth. Read Online
- May 21, 2009 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Provisions Which Can Support Programming to Improve Outcomes for Black Men & Boys Prior to the economic downturn, Black males already faced disproportionately negative outcomes in so many areas, including education, health, justice, and employment. The recession has only exacerbated the problems faced by this population. There is a case to be made for targeting American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) resources to this population and for using these one-time resources to begin to put in place programs and efforts which will have lasting effects for Black males. This document highlights the funding streams in the ARRA which may provide such opportunities. Download PDF
- Apr 15, 2009 | Linda Harris Considerations for WIA Reauthorization: Title I Youth Provisions WIA reauthorization provides the opportunity to re-think and strengthen the youth delivery system across the country. CLASP recommendations focus on increase targeting to high risk youth and more strategic alliances among youth serving systems. Download PDF
- Apr 14, 2009 | Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Identifying Opportunities in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to Improve Outcomes for Black Men and Boys Black men and boys face disproportionately negative life outcomes in many domains, particularly education, employment and justice. This audio conference will identify opportunities in the ARRA to provide education, training, and supportive services in a targeted manner to black men and boys. Download Audio | Additional PDF
- Oct 29, 2008 | Linda Harris and Evelyn Ganzglass Creating Postsecondary Pathways to Good Jobs for Young High School Dropouts This paper advocates expansion and better integration of efforts to connect high school dropouts between the ages of 16 and 24 to pathways to postsecondary credentials that have value in the labor market. The paper highlights examples of innovations in policy, program delivery, pedagogy in adult education, youth development and dropout recovery, and postsecondary education that should be built upon in developing more robust and successful dropout recovery and postsecondary education policies and practices to open the door to higher wages and career opportunities for this population. The authors urge federal officials, governors, school administrators, college officials, workforce leaders and employers to provide leadership in building the supports and pathways at scale to bring dropout youth back into the education and labor market mainstream. The paper was prepared for the Center for American Progress. Download PDF
- Aug 19, 2005 | Linda Harris What's a Youngster to Do? The Education and Labor Market Plight of Youth in High-Poverty Communities Statistics show that many young adults in economically distressed communities are being left behind in educational systems and in the job market. This article highlights the magnitude of distress in selected communities and outlines a set of considerations for policy-making and action at the national and community level. Pub No. 05-40. 9 pages. August 2005. Download PDF