READY BY 21 “DASHBOARD FOR YOUTH”

PROPOSED OUTCOMES AND INDICATORS

August 24, 2008

What is the purpose of the “Dashboard” framework for a continuum of youth development?

Initiatives for children and youth often fail to show the “big picture.” How are initiatives at the early childhood level related to middle school programs? What are the right intersections for collaboration, since children being healthy and connected is important in its own right, yet also affects school success while falling outside of the purview of traditional “education”?

In 2003, members of the “founding group” for the Ready by 21 Coalition adopted the “Dashboards for Youth” continuum framework developed by the Forum for Youth Investment, a national nonprofit youth policy organization headquartered in Washington, DC. (Please see attached.)

The “Dashboard” is a tool to show our community’s aspirations for youth outcomes across the continuum of youth development - what we want our young people to be able to do or experience as they progress from early childhood to young adulthood. Outcomes on this Dashboard represent our hopes for each individual young person and for all young people in our community, including special populations of children and youth who face additional challenges and barriers.

Please note that the outcomes on the framework are all about children and youth, not about services and supports. The framework is envisioned as a set of community outcomes.It will take families, schools, service organizations and their programs, leaders, community members, and of course, the youth themselves to make a difference. By working together toward common goals, we hope to make efforts more systemic and yield better results.

Different organizations will continue to collect and track different kinds of data, and our Dashboard list will by no means be inclusive of all the data measures. However, by building consensus on our aspirational outcomes and the indicators by which we would measure our success as a community toward reaching them, we will reduce conflicting signals and be able to collaborate more broadly to obtain data that we need to gauge results.

CREDITAND THANKS TO:

-The Forum for Youth Investment and Bartholomew County, Indiana for sharing samples of RB21 Dashboards with outcomes and indicators.

-United Way and Workforce Solutions for sponsoring the work to build consensus on a common list of proposed outcomes and indicators.

-E3 Alliance, CTAN representatives, Austin/Travis County Health & Human Services Department, Mayor’s Mental Health Monitoring Committee, Success By 6, APIE, Skillpoint Alliance, Junior Achievement, and the CAN, who met with us and contributed suggestions on outcomes and indicators for our first draft of the Dashboard.

-Members of the Ready by 21 Coalition who have spent hours developing and refining the list of proposed outcomes and indicators. (Please see list of participating organizations on the next page.)

-Ready by 21 Steering Committee members who helped guide the work of the Coalition to this stage in the process and facilitated multiple working sessions on outcomes and indicators.

Ready By 21 Participants Represent the following Organizations:

Ready by 21 is a trademark of the Forum for Youth Investment. The Ready by 21 Coalition in Austin/Travis County is a member of the Forum's Ready by 21 Learning Network, and is sponsored by Workforce Solutions – Capital Area. August 2008

Key: *Steering Committee member +Workgroup Team Lead (bold)Participated in development of proposed outcomes/indicators

  • 2-1-1/Hands On Central Texas
  • American YouthWorks
  • Any Baby Can
  • Austin Area Urban League
  • AustinCommunity College
  • AustinIndependentSchool District(AISD)*: 21st Century Learning Communities, Austin Community Collaboration to Enhance Student Success (ACCESS), Dropout Prevention/Reduction, Guidance & Counseling
  • Austin Partners in Education*
  • Austin Police Department (APD)
  • The Austin Project
  • Austin Voices for Education & Youth*+
  • Austin/Travis CountyHealth Human Services Department (ATCHHSD)
  • Big Brothers Big Sisters
  • Boys and Girls Clubs of the Capital Area
  • Breakthrough Austin
  • Capital Metro
  • CASA of TravisCounty
  • Casey Family Programs
  • Catholic Charities
  • CentralTexasAfterschool Network (CTAN) +
  • Central Texas Sustainability Indicators Project
  • City of Austin (COA) Family and Youth Services*, HHS, Mayor's Mental Health Monitoring Committee (MMHMC)
  • Coalition for Emotional Literacy
  • College For All Texans Foundation
  • College Forward
  • Communities in Schools (CIS)+
  • Community Action Network (CAN)*
  • Council on At Risk Youth (CARY)
  • Del Valle High School, Del Valle ISD
  • E3 Alliance
  • Foundation Communities
  • GENaustin
  • Girl Scouts - Lone Star Council
  • Goodwill Industries*
  • Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce+
  • Heart House
  • Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program
  • Hispanic Physicians Association
  • Housing Authority of the City of Austin (HACA)
  • insure.a.kid
  • LifeWorks
  • ManorHigh School, Manor ISD
  • My Healing Place
  • Out Youth
  • PflugervilleIndependentSchool District
  • Pip Start Ministries
  • Planned Parenthood
  • SafePlace
  • ScottishRiteLearningCenter
  • Skillpoint Alliance
  • Southwest Key Program
  • SUMA/Orchard Social Marketing
  • Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS)
  • Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board*
  • Texas Network of Youth Services
  • TexasStateUniversity - San Marcos
  • Texas Youth Commission (TYC)
  • Theatre Action Project
  • TravisCountyJuvenile Probation*, Research & Planning, Underage Drinking Prevention Program
  • University of Texasat Austin - Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation+, Health Education
  • United Way Capital Area*+
  • Workforce Solutions – Capital Area*
  • Youth Interactive
  • YouthLaunch
  • YWCA

Ready by 21 is a trademark of the Forum for Youth Investment. The Ready by 21 Coalition in Austin/Travis County is a member of the Forum's Ready by 21 Learning Network, and is sponsored by Workforce Solutions – Capital Area. August 2008

Key: *Steering Committee member +Workgroup Team Lead (bold)Participated in development of proposed outcomes/indicators