[The following final update was written by the organization and then sent to us for further sharing.]

First Place for Youth is proud to share progress made in connecting transition-age foster youth to high-quality careers that will improve their economic independence through our Steps to Success program and evidence based Earn and Learn Model. Through strategic partnerships with industry leaders in high-growth sectors such as construction, healthcare, and information technology, First Place equips youth to enter the workforce with a competitive edge in the labor market, and the skillset needed to advance towards living-wage careers. Our program provides individualized education and employment support, starting with career coaching to help youth establish the connection between education, employment and lifetime earning potential, and then supports them in selecting, enrolling, and completing pre-apprenticeships, apprenticeships, and other types of Earn and Learn opportunities.

During the reporting period from October 2023 – September 2024, First Place served 221 youth, who achieved the following positive outcomes:

• Objective: 80% of youth will receive or pursue their high school diploma or GED
  • Outcome: 89% of youth in program for 30+ days are enrolled, making progress or received their HSD/GED
• Objective: 80% of college-eligible youth will enroll in postsecondary education
  • Outcome: 70% of college eligible youth in program for 30+ days are in active postsecondary education enrollments. This metric increases to 86% for youth in program for 365+ days.
• Objective: 20% of youth will enroll in an apprenticeship program
  • Outcome: 32% of career ready youth enrolled in an apprenticeship during their time in program
• Objective: 50% of youth will make progress in their postsecondary education
  • Outcome: 60% of youth enrolled in program for 180+ days made significant progress in postsecondary education

First Place prioritizes data-informed decision making to ensure our programming is effective in helping youth achieve positive outcomes around education, employment, housing, and healthy living. Our approach is grounded in measuring impact, not simply services provided. Maintained by our Evaluation + Learning team, our customized performance management tools enable us to evaluate the efficacy of specific interventions, determine the best approach for each youth, and make real-time improvements to our programs. Our data-tracking system, Apricot, provides up-to-date information including demographics, service counts, outcomes, client feedback, and community impact. The data we track includes: school attendance, education progress, employment status, income, avoidance of risky behaviors, etc. Program staff enter data weekly, and then we analyze this data monthly, quarterly, and annually. Additionally, our Youth Roadmap Tool supports program staff in developing highly individualized roadmaps of recommended services and milestones to help each young person achieve their goals. Based on data from hundreds of My First Place program alumni, the system utilizes an equity lens and has a target of young people achieving living-wage employment by program exit. This is the key achievement we understand to be a proxy for long-term housing stability and true self-sufficiency.

In addition to this quantitative data, our Evaluation and Learning team as well as program staff work with youth in program to collect qualitative information to provide context and deeper insights into what is and is not working with our interventions. One program participant shared that her Earn and Learn program, a short-term medical program focused on phlebotomy, was a perfect motivator to understand how to boost her earning potential and that the stipend she received while studying for certification was a guiding force that super charged her progress. Another program participant shared that he was very satisfied with his pre-apprenticeship program because it was hybrid online and in-person, making completing the certificate practical and achievable, while setting him up to pursue full-time work.

The impact of your support is best represented by the successes of the youth we serve, such as Raymone. Raymone has been working diligently toward his education and employment goals since joining First Place in 2024. After settling into his safe First Place apartment, Raymone worked with his wraparound support team to determine a career pathway that would assure a living-wage income. He chose to pursue a pre-apprenticeship training course through Brother’s Keeper on carpentry, and recently obtained his Certificate of Completion and is getting ready to attend a hiring event that has over 35 employers with opportunities in architecture, engineering, and construction. Raymone’s impressive achievements show that when empowered with comprehensive support services, the young people in our programs can end cycles of chronic poverty and build a brighter future for themselves, their children, and their community.

We are looking to better understand Earn and Learn engagement, progression, and completion. Over the last 12 months, we have identified several lessons that contribute to this:

• Youth complete their programs at higher rates after participating in our career coaching, which works to strengthen youth’s connection between education, career-related training, employment experience, and soft-skills development. Coaching is recommended until youth can articulate differences in career options, identify a career focus, and determine an option that is a good fit for them.
• First Place prioritizes individualized services to ensure youth have reliable access to the resources they need to succeed in their programs. This involves choosing programs that are accessible via public transportation, arranging childcare, and providing essential technology like laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots. When selecting Earn and Learn programs, it's important to consider not only the youth's interests and transferable skills but also factors like location and accessibility. This approach helps ensure that the youth receive the support they need to succeed.
• Support from trusted adults is essential for young people pursuing postsecondary education and Earn and Learn programs. Connecting youth with mentors helps reduce dropout rates by creating a sense of belonging, supports them in setting and achieving their goals, and provides opportunities for professional development that acknowledges their personal experiences.
• We are refining our programming to better match youth interested in Earn and Learn opportunities with those ready to pursue them. By reducing the number of cohorts per year in each career pathway, we can give youth more time to develop their job readiness skills. This approach also allows staff to gain a deeper understanding of each program’s requirements before recruiting youth.

Finding alignment with county regulations to promote foster youth success in Earn and Learn programs continues to be a challenge. A significant barrier to enrollment is strict interpretation and enforcement of county regulations for students to verify full time status to remain eligible for financial aid. This requirement is leading youth to feel that they need to engage in full-time, low-wage work or enroll full-time in community college, despite research showing that foster youth face significant challenges in pursuing and completing college. To address this barrier, we invest in systems change advocacy to ground policy in practice and emphasize career coaching to help our youth make informed decisions of what opportunities are the best fit for them.

First Place prioritizes creating intentional, strengths-based partnerships to enhance capacity, quality and sustainability of services for foster youth. We actively cultivate partnerships with a variety of service providers, local businesses, nonprofits, employment agencies, and policymakers to ensure our youth have access to a broad continuum of resources, support services, and education/employment opportunities.

For our Earn and Learn partners, we are developing a robust vetting process to be sure we are connecting youth to the programs that are most impactful and that lead to living-wage careers. Foster youth are benefitting the most from working with employers that have low barriers to entry, the most transferrable skills, and utilize a trauma-informed lens. 13 (pre)apprenticeship partnerships with LA County employers and educational institutions have been formalized, including JVS Socal, LA Skills Academy, NPower, LAMP- Long Beach Action Partnership, Better Youth -Aim-n-Inspire Apprenticeship, Unite LA, UEI - Medical Assistant Training, Reignite Hope, LA Phlebotomy Technician Program, Culver City Phlebotomy Training Program, LA Technology Center Medical Assistant Training, Thryv, Grid Alternatives, and Brothers Keeper.

First Place is continuously developing partnerships with existing apprenticeship programs, as well as creating new ones that are tailored to our youth: we approached CVS Health and proposed a partnership through which we hire instructors to come provide the relevant classes on site in our offices, and we pay those instructors as well as provide youth with stipends for the time they're in those classes. CVS then provides paid internships where youth concurrently get on-the-job training, and once completed, CVS is incentivized to hire those youth in full-time positions.

First Place is planning on expanding our Earn and Learn programming to inform a larger plan with an appendix of workforce development resources. Our goal at this stage is to develop critical partnerships and opportunities in each of the six California counties we serve (Los Angeles, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Solano) within the high-growth sectors we’ve researched. We will share our findings with other stakeholders, demonstrating our process from start to finish, thereby outlining a roadmap to remove barriers and increase engagement of transition-age youth in workforce services and programming.

Media Links

• Fostering Possibilities Short Film with Art + Practice

• Press Release: First Place for Youth Selected to Participate in the Chafee Strengthening Outcomes for Transition to Adulthood Project 

• Blog: From Lived Experience to Rhyme: The Resonance of Hip Hop in the Foster Care Narrative

• CBS Feature on CVS Pharmacy Tech Program

• Youth Roundtable