YouthBuild USA and the GAP Foundation
Mental Toughness II
Implementation and Funding Opportunity
Challenge Statement
For many low-income young people, and especially for students who are the first in their family to attempt college, the transition into postsecondary education and career pathways often proves difficult. Through seven years of work in the Postsecondary Education (PSE) Pathways Initiative, YouthBuild USA, local YouthBuild program staff and YouthBuild graduates have implemented, partnered on, and experienced a wide range of bridge to college programming efforts. Some of these programs and courses have proven helpful for YouthBuild students.However, we believe that approaches and core values from the YouthBuild movement can help create a newbridge experience that resonates more with YouthBuild leaders (students, graduates, and staff) for effectively supporting the transition from YouthBuild into college and careers.
Our Opportunity
With the generous support of the Gap Foundation, we have constructed our own approach to help students transition from YouthBuild into more successful college, career and community leadership pathways.YouthBuild USA, Mockingbird Education, the Academy for College Excellence, the VOICES student leadership Council, and leading YouthBuild program practitioners have completed acurriculum framework for Mental Toughness II (MT II). In building theMT II experience, YouthBuild USA has leveraged key existing resources, including:
- expertise and experience of student and graduate leaders in the YouthBuild network;
- success of the Academy for College Excellence (ACE) in delivering comprehensive bridge programming experiences in collaboration with community colleges;
- leadership development competencies focused on during core YouthBuild programming;
- foundational and soft skill elements of the Gap Foundation’s This Way Ahead and Plan Ahead curriculum models;
- tone and name of YouthBuild’s existing pre-program Mental Toughness orientation;
- instructional expertise and engagement strategies practiced by Mockingbird Education;
- knowledge of lead instructors, directors, transition staff, and coaches in our network; and
- overall commitment to positive transformation and social justice that serves as a foundation for successful YouthBuild programming efforts.
Based on these resources and the expertise and leadership of the young people and practitioners leading our process, we have createda comprehensive curriculum framework intended to be delivered during an intensive two-week experience near the end or shortly after completion of YouthBuild.
The course was first developed in the spring of 2014. During the summer and fall of 2014, the first cohort of 10 YouthBuild programs implemented MT II. There was a significant increase with our second and third cohorts as an average of 30 YouthBuild programs implemented MT II. Participating staff and students provided positive feedback on the course. We have made relevant adjustments and improvements to the course based on feedback from YouthBuild educators, directors, students and graduates at local programs.
The course includes a core set of 5 units for the curriculum framework which we believe most essential to ensure student success in transitioning to their next step in college, careers and leadership opportunities.
Overview of Mental Toughness II
1) What’s My Why – Helps students consider and describe, “What’s my personal motivation for why I’m in college, why I’m pursuing this career pathway, why I’m learning, and why I’m called to lead.” Students will connect their “why” to a purpose-driven education and career pathway for their future.
2) Believe You Belong – Helps students understand and deepen their self-worth, improve their self-knowledge, participate in meaningful reflection, and more fully believe they belong in new and oftentimes intimidating college and career environments.
3) The Plan –Empowers students to develop, share and commit to their own plan of action for postsecondary success & career success. Students create a portfolio plan outlining their goals and their specific plan for reaching their unique college and career goals. Students have the opportunity to share and present their portfolio plan (created during the course) to a group of peers and community partners.
4) Bring You’re “A” Game – Helps students improve their Academic “A” game by understanding and addressing what matters most in terms of academic college skills, including metacognition (learning how we learn), note taking, and other essential learning skills. Students recognize and practice the academic skills that they will most need to succeed in college and career settings.
5) Connecting to Purpose-Driven Career Pathways (Additional/Optional Career FocusedUnit) –Helps students develop a specific career pathway plan and supports students to explorethe necessary skills and certifications for career pathway(s) of focus. Students find their “best bets” for career credentials and postsecondary/training pathways tied to emerging career opportunities.
Across the Curriculum Framework – Throughout all five units, the curriculum framework introduces and reinforces consistent norms, rituals, technology skills, and shared language. These common elements across all five units will promote active and deep connection to a cohort, improve engagement, reinforce priority 21st century skills, and feel familiar to YouthBuild staff and students implementing great instructional practice during YouthBuild. The connection across the learning community should also allow personal motivation and individual success plans to connect with shared purpose of other students and staff participants deeply committed to each other’s shared success.
Context and Expectations for Implementation
In early April 2017, we will select up to 40YouthBuild programs to implement the MT II curriculum framework. In deciding if the curriculum framework is a good fit for your program, please carefully consider the following operational context for the work.
1) YouthBuild USA and Mockingbird Education are providing a curriculum framework.YouthBuild USA isalso providingeach site $1,500 in additional grant resources for implementation and educator training/development. Programs should have the resources, space, and ability to implement this additional curriculum without additional new grant dollars beyond the $1,500 provided by YouthBuild USA.
2) Any program implementing the model should have educator(s) ready and able to teach the course.We are not able to provide instructional staff to teach the course. Current staff or partners specifically committed to teaching this course must be available at participating programs.
3) The MTII experience represents an intensive two-week immersion experience. Although program leaders expressed an interest in an extended bridge programming effort, most respondents agreed that two weeks is a reasonable timeframe to expect engagement across the YouthBuild network for programs facing varying degrees of budget, resource, and time constraints. A model longer than two weeks would compromise the ability of many YouthBuild programs to attempt implementation. A model shorter than two weeks of intensive learning would limit impact for participating students.
4) The MTII experience will be implemented at the end of YouthBuild programming and before the start of the fall academic calendar at local postsecondary institutions. YouthBuild USA is not prescribing a specific date range for implementation because of scheduling and calendar differences across our network. However, in most instances, we would expect implementation in August or early September – after the core YouthBuild program has been completed and before college courses start. Participating programs must plan for two additional weeks of programming beyond existing programming to accommodate MT II implementation.
5) The MTII experience will prove useful and relevant to students transitioning into both postsecondary and career pathways. Successful placement for YouthBuild students includes both career and college pathways. And we believe there are shared skills and competencies necessary for success in both pathways that will be addressed by our curriculum framework.
6) The MTII experience should be offered to as many transitioning students as possible; however, YouthBuild USA will not require participation of all students at participating programs. YouthBuild USA is providing a curriculum framework and $1,500 dollars for implementation of that curriculum. Consequently, while we hope that many students at participating programs can benefit, we are not requiring specific numbers or percentages of student participants in these initial stages of the initiative. We are asking for participating programs to report on numbers of anticipated and actual student participation numbers for MT II.
7) YouthBuild Students must be ready for the MTII experience. The curriculum framework is designed for students who have successfully completed a YouthBuild program. Students who have no plans for transitioning into college and/or careers; students who have not done serious career and college exploration during YouthBuild; and students who are dramatically below academic readiness for college-level work are not likely to succeed in a MT II experience. We are focusing on a core set of skills, knowledge, and dispositions that matter most for YouthBuild students to achieve better success in transitioning into college and career. We are not designing a curriculum framework to remediate learning or to provide exposure activities that students should have experienced during YouthBuild.
8)The MTII experience will continue to be examined, refined and improved over time. The spring of 2017 represents our fourth attempt at implementing the approach. However, we expect to iteratively redesign the experience based on feedback from and experiences of students, graduates, teachers, program leaders and YouthBuild USA staff.
9) MT II participants (instructors & students) will provide feedback on the effectiveness of the experience.YouthBuild USA will ask participating programs and students to participate in a survey and an interview/focus group to collect feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of this initiative.
10) Participating programs should have the capacity to maintain contact with program graduates. YouthBuild USA will ask about the postsecondary enrollment/career placement and retention of participants. And the programs will also recognize opportunities for staff to achieve meaningful follow up points of connection building from experiences during MTII.
Site Selection and Implementation Timeline
We are asking your program to carefully consider participation. We have created a brief request for information for programs to complete if they are interested in using the Mental Toughness II curriculum framework. The site selection process and timeline will occur as follows.
1)Feb 27 – Release of Mental Toughness II Overview to the Field
2) February 27-March 31 – Programs complete the brief Request for Information (RFI) and ask any clarifying questions regarding the curriculum framework or context for implementation.
3) March 31– Programs submit the RFI to YouthBuild USA. All questions and RFI responses should be sent to Jason Marshall ().
4) April 3-April 6 –YouthBuild USA proposal review & site selection.
5) April 7 – YouthBuild USA contacts selected sites.
6) May 22– Instructional training for educators at selected implementation sites. The training will focus on supporting MT II classroom efforts. Mockingbird Education and YouthBuild USA will convene the training and details will be provided for selected sites.
Invitation and Deadline to Apply
*Programs should be members of the Affiliated Network. Non-affiliates will need to contact YouthBuild USA to request a Presidential Waiver, describe their current status and work toward affiliation, and commit to becoming an affiliate in order to participate in MT II. If we receive many applicants for funding, currently affiliated programs will receive strong preferential treatment in the selection process over non-affiliates earlier in the affiliation process who request a waiver.
Programs should submit responses via email to Jason Marshall by March 31st.
There are no formatting requirements and no page number minimums or limits. Programs should provide complete and honest responses to the following questions. If you responded to the MT II RFI last year, please feel free to refer to your previous answers. But please ensure that your responses are accurate for your implementation plans for this year.
1) Why is your program interested in implementing Mental Toughness II?
2) How would Mental Toughness II align with your overall program culture and goals?
3) Who would teach Mental Toughness II?
4) Where would you teach MT II (YB campus, community college campus, elsewhere)?
5) Approximately how many students would you anticipate participating in the course?
6) Approximately when would you expect to deliver the course (date range between Aug-Sept)?
7) How does your program maintain contact with graduates in college and careers?
8) Can you commit to participating staff and students in the initiative providing YouthBuild USA with feedback (via a survey and interview/focus group) regarding the MT II experience?
9) Other reasons your program and your students would benefit from MT II?
10) Other reasons, or related previous experiences with bridge programming, that would help your program would succeed with implementation of MT II?
In some communities, GAP Foundation volunteers are available to visit participating YouthBuild programs primarily to watch and provide feedback to students on the culminating student portfolio presentations on the last day of MT II. Volunteers would likely spend a half day at your program, including a brief tour/staff interaction to understand the program model, followed by a couple of hours of watching and responding to student portfolio presentations. We hope and expect that this could help your program build a deeper relationship with the Gap and also ground the student experience with real world feedback from volunteer partners.
11) Are you interested in partnering with Gap Foundation volunteers on MT II? This is not required, but an additional resource for interested programs where the Gap has access to volunteer resources.
12) If yes, who would be the staff member responsible for coordinating the details of the visit with Gap volunteers? (Volunteer coordinator, AmeriCorps coordinator, MT II Instructor, etc.) Please provide name and contact information.
13) And would this staff member be willing to participate in a brief planning conversation with the Gap volunteer coordinator for your community to plan their engagement in advance of MT II ( at least a month before the last day of MT II, when they would be spending time with your program)?
Frequently Asked Questions
What if my students already participate in a bridge program?
Yes, we encourage students to participate in multiple bridge programs. The skills and knowledge prioritized by different courses will vary and offer value in different ways. We hope MT II can supplement existing bridge programs your students might be participating in currently.
Will my students receive college credit for this?
Not yet. We hope to eventually work with college partners to consider the relationship of course content to college credit. However, they will not currently receive credit for the course.
Does a student have to have been accepted into a postsecondary, training, or career pathway?
No. Students should have experienced success in completing a YouthBuild program. However, they do not need to have been accepted into a postsecondary, training, or career pathway to participate.
Can we use our own materials to supplement the curriculum?
Yes, we have provided a curriculum framework to guide your instructional work for MT II. We strongly encourage participating programs to use the majority of the curriculum framework so that we can consider the efficacy of the model. However, if you have additional materials and approaches to include in the course, you should feel free to supplement the course as appropriate.
How will you select programs? And how many will you select?
Based on responses to the questions asked above, we will select up to40 programs who demonstrate strong interest in and potential for implementing MT II.
Can alumni participate in MT II?
Yes, but we encourage programs to focus primarily on current students graduating during the current program year. We believe focusing on current students will help create deeper connections for course participants. If you decide to engage alumni, we encourage you to work with graduates from the last two years of your program.
Is there a minimum or maximum number of participants in the course?
No, we expect that at least 15-35 students represent a good number of participants per course. If you would like to run multiple courses with larger number of students, or have fewer than 15 students ready to participate, we can discuss the details for allowing variation in numbers.
Can students attending different colleges and training programs or pursuing different careers participate in the same MT II experience?
Yes, we expect YouthBuild students to pursue different pathways after completing the course.
Can college instructors, graduate leaders, and YouthBuild staff or a combination of these staff teach/co-teach the course?Yes, we believe a range of talented & dedicated staff can teach the course.
Are programs who participated in MT II last year eligible to participate again?
Yes, programs who implemented MT II last year are eligible, along with programs who would be implementing the curriculum framework for the first time.