2008United Way and Jewish Healthcare Foundation Request for Proposal

Motivating Kids to Succeed in School Initiative

Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship

Proposal Summary: Instructions

To complete this proposal, interested applicants must submit all of the following by 5p.m. on July 15, 2008:

  1. Proposal Summary Form – a maximum of three pages (cover sheet not included) with a minimum font size of 11 pt.
  2. Evaluation Participation Agreement– Organizations must agree to comply with evaluation protocols as part of the pilot process to evaluate the effectiveness of the Fellowship experience.
  3. The Organizational Eligibility Tool (OET)

Organizations must answer “Yes” to allitems on the Organizational Eligibility Tool to be considered for funding.

  1. 501 (c)(3) Determination Letter
  2. Complete SPARC Data Collection Form – The Southwestern Pennsylvania After-School Resource Collaboration (SPARC) collects pertinent information on out-of-school time programs in AlleghenyCounty. The Data Collection Form for this effort may be accessed at Data must be current and fully completed to be considered for this proposal.

All submissions are to be made by attaching the completed documents to an email sent to .

Please include your agency name in the footer of each of the UW forms submitted.

If you have questions, contact Wendy Etheridge Smith, Ph.D. at 412.456.6855

Proposal Summary: Background

At schools where there are large numbers of at-risk youth such as Pittsburgh Westinghouse and Pittsburgh Peabody, almost 50% of the students drop out before completing their high school diplomas. Only a small percentageof students in 11th grade perform proficiently on state reading and math assessments. Students are underachieving academically and are ill-prepared for life after high school.

Many high school graduates do not have the basic skills needed to succeed in the workplace.One survey of local employers suggests that as few as 10%-20% of applicants for jobs that only require a high school degree actually have the basic skills – reading, writing, arithmetic, communications – needed for success in the workplace. This ever increasing gap between the skills needed to be successful in the workplace and the skill level of high school graduates presents a problem for regional employers, particularly healthcare employers who provide 1 in 7 jobs in AlleghenyCounty.

Employers and educators are seeking ways to improve students’ preparation for college and careers. Recent evidence shows that students achieve better academic skills and are motivated to complete school when they understand the connections between academics and future careers and can envision a pathway for themselves.[1]Community-based organizations, with programming in academic and personal development, are well positioned to provide programs that build the connections between academics and career experiences. Health Careers Futures, a non-profit supporting organization of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, has explored the following best practices that successful organizations throughout the country are using to promote career development:

  • Job Shadow/Site Visits
  • Internships
  • Academic Enhancement
  • Professional Development
  • Mentoring
  • Career/College Counseling
  • Personal Counseling
  • ClinicalTraining/Certification
  • Workforce Readiness (other than internships – e.g., “soft skills”)

Of the446 after-school programs in AlleghenyCounty, 12 indicate they specifically provide career and/or workforce development activities, and 137 indicate they support personal development.[2]Health Careers Futures and United Wayconducted a survey to determine the degree to which best practices in career development are being used in these programs. Preliminary results suggest that although many programs incorporate a few best practices, few implement the robust combination required for improvement in outcomes. Organizations stated that barriers to effective career development offered in after-school programs include lack of time, funding, staff expertise, and adequate evaluation services. As we begin to look to after-school programs to lead in assisting students to build connections between academic achievement and careers, we must ensure that they have the adequate resources to implement and maintain effective programming. Thus, the Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship will identify after-school and community-basedprograms to support improvements in their health-related career development practices and help at-risk youth become “health career” ready. The Fellowshipalso will provide program assessment, evaluation, and most importantly,dissemination of best practices.

A total of sixteen (16)to twenty (20)community-based organizations will be selected for participation in the Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship with one cohort selected for 2008-2009 and another for 2009-2010 (eight to tenprograms per year). Criteria for selection include quality of application, ability of the agency to demonstrate organizational excellence and efficiency (e.g., meet United Way’s criteria for high-performing agencies), and readiness to show significant programming progress when utilizing the skills the Fellowship will provide. The Fellowship is targeted for programs serving 7th through 9th grade students.Program requirements include:

  • Participation of two (2) program staff (program director and manager/coordinator)
  • Participation in four (4) half-day training seminars
  • Participation in ten (10) monthly 4-hour sessions
  • Implementation of customized career development module
  • Participation of 25 – 30, 7th – 9th grade students from organization
  • Participation in assessment and evaluation protocols

The Fellowshipwill provide each participating organization $15,000, which will be paid in monthly installments from August2008 throughMay 2009 for the first cohort and August 2009 through May 2010 for the second cohort.Proposals must be submitted by 5p.m. on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. Programs will be notified of their selection on Friday, August 1, 2008.Health Careers Futures will host a Fellowship Sampler meeting on June 18, 2008from 10 AM to noon at United Way for interested organizations to learn what is expected of Fellow organizations. Attendance is required for consideration of a proposal.

The Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship is funded by the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and United Way and is a joint project of United Way, Health Careers Futures, and the Pittsburgh Regional Compact. United Way oversees the selection and evaluation of community-based organizations. Health Careers Futures provides tools, resources, and training on best practices. Health Careers Futures and the Pittsburgh Regional Compact both provide employer networks for participating organizations.
Cover Sheet: Motivating Kids to Succeed in School Initiative– Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship

Contact Information

Agency Name(leadagency):

Address:

Website:

Executive Director:

Email:

Phone Number:

Primary proposal contact name:

Email:

Phone number:

Agency name:

Address:

Website:

Agency name:

Address:

Website:

Budget Information(refers to budget for general program not the Fellowship budget)

Total cost ofafter-school current program / Average cost per participant for current after-school program
$ / $

Current Annual Agency Budget: $

Fiscal year / Amount of operating surplus if any / Amount of operating deficit if any / Total expenses
2005 / $ / $ / $
2006 / $ / $ / $
2007
(Actual or Budgeted) / $ / $ / $
A: Line 12
Total Revenue
(from most recent 990) / B: Line 14
Management and General
(from most recent 990) / C: Line 15
Fundraising
(from most recent 990) / Administrative Overhead
(B + C)/A
(from most recent 990)
$ / $ / $ / %

Program Information

1. Indicate the number of participants enrolled in after-school program in the following grades:

K – 6th Grades / 7th – 9th Grades / 10th – 12th Grades

2. Expected grades and # of students to be enrolled in the Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship activities: (Minimum capacity of 25 students enrolled is required for consideration.)

Grades to be Served / # Students

How many days of the week are you generally open? ______

3. Looking at your records for the 2007-2008 program year, what percentage of your youth in the grades you intend to serve in the Fellowship program attend at the following rates:

% who attend 5 days per week / % who attend 3 – 4 days per week / % who attend 1 – 2 days per week / % of children/youth who attend sporadically / We don’t monitor attendance

4. What is your budget for the Fellowship funding ($15,000)?

Personnel / Cost
(Title and FTE) -
Salary
Benefits
Personnel Total
Operations
Supplies
Equipment
Transportation
Operations Total
Other
Other Total
GRAND TOTAL

Program Description Form

Please respond to each of the following. Feel free to use bullet points and other brief formats. When complete, the form should be no more than three pages, single-spaced, 11 pt font or larger.

  1. Describe the mission, goals, and activities of your after-school program and how well you feel the Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship fits into your mission.
  1. Describe the specific population to be served. If you use selection criteria to recruit participants for your after-school program, include the selection criteria (socio-economic status, educational proficiency standards, learning disability,behavioral challenges etc.). Use your description to demonstrate why this population needs the Fellowship opportunities.
  1. List the geographic area or neighborhoods to be served. If any of these are high need areas (e.g., high drop-out or truancy rates), please provide supporting data.
  1. How long have staff at various levels (i.e., group leader and program director) worked in your after-school program? What is your staff retention rate?
  1. Describe your history of supporting career and/or workforce development. Have you provided experiences specific to health careers?
  2. Please describe any previous or existingexperiences your organization has had in career education programming and/or collaborations with employers, career development organizations or workforce programs. Briefly describe the nature of the partnerships (i.e.,responsibilities, length of time, activities, successes, challenges).How would you improve on these programs?

If your organization has not done career education programming, please describe another type of partnership.

  1. Do you have specific partnerships with schools? If so, please describe what occurs in the partnership.
  1. Describe your agency’s experience in evaluating its services. What have you learned? How has evaluation information impacted what you do?
  1. If the Fellowship is successful, we hope to build a system to enable more after-school programs to implement evidence-basedactivities as well as broaden their scope to address additional types of careers. Why are you the best agency to serve in the first cohort of the Fellowship in after-school programs?

1

Name:

Rev. 10/20/2018

2008United Way and Jewish Healthcare Foundation Request for Proposal

Motivating Kids to Succeed in School Initiative

Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship

Evaluation Participation Agreement

The ______agrees to comply with all evaluation requirements if selected to implement the pilot project. There will be an evaluation of each customized module implementation and an evaluation of the overall Fellowship process. Components of the evaluation of module implementationmay include required surveys of participants, site visits to complete observational assessments, and interviews with staff, participants, and parents. Specific elements of this evaluation will be decided by the United Wayand Health Careers Futures staff in consultation with the selected cohort sites. An independent evaluator will assess the success of the Fellowship program (with input from participating Fellows) and give recommendations for improvement. Participating organizations will not bear the costs associated with implementing the evaluation components.

I understand that the evaluation information may be shared broadly to inform the replication of the pilot project in additional sites. I also understand that the dissemination strategy will not include any identifying information for specific participants.

______

After-School Program DirectorDate

______

Agency Executive DirectorDate

1

Name:

Rev. 10/20/2018

[1] National Research Council Institute of Medicine. (2004) Engaging Schools: Fostering High School Students’ Motivation to Learn. The National Academies Press: Washington, D.C.

[2] Data drawn from the Southwestern PA After-School Resource Collaboration at: