Nebraska Children and Families Foundation: Connected Youth Initiative

Nebraska Children and Families Foundation implemented the Connected Youth Initiative (CYI) to help young people aged 14 to 24 from adverse backgrounds transition towards a positive adulthood. CYI uses a collective impact approach to create systems change in rural Nebraska communities and serves young people in Nebraska through the following essential CYI elements:

• Opportunities for youth leadership and advocacy
• A financial literacy and asset-building program
• Support services funds for young adults to access an array of basic needs services and supports in emergency instances
• Goal-oriented coaching to develop skills, access services, and support self-sufficiency in the transition to adulthood

Study Goals:

The goals of this study are to demonstrate the impacts of the CYI model and to understand implementation in a rural context.

Research Questions:

The evaluation includes both implementation and impact research questions. The research questions include:

• Impact Questions:
  • Compared to similar young people who do not participate, to what extent does CYI improve the following for the young people who participated:
    • overall well-being
    • access to stable housing
    • access to stable employment and education
    • other domains of well-being
• Implementation Questions:
  • How prepared are the communities to implement CYI, and what is their capacity around data collection?
  • What contextual factors about the community, partners, and region influence the implementation of CYI?
  • What are the variations in how CYI is implemented in communities (e.g., services offered, services accepted, participation)?
  • What challenges are the subgrantees facing in the implementation of the CYI model?
  • What positive effects are subgrantees seeing?
  • To what extent, if any, has the focus on collective impact increased the sustainability and capacity of the collaboratives?

Findings:

The evaluation’s findings include the following:

• Impact Findings:
  • CYI achieved multiple positive outcomes for young people who engaged in programming and services.
  • Overall, CYI participants are statistically more likely to report:
    • More safe and stable living situations,
    • Greater financial stability,
    • Increased perceived hope, and
    • Decreased emergency care utilization.
• Implementation Findings:
  • Young adults engaged with the CYI through 16 different types of combinations, though coaching was the most common component utilized across all.
  • At a systems-level, staff indicated that setting the CYI model within a collaborative infrastructure often generated greater awareness and understanding of the unconnected youth population within the community.

For more information, download the full report and report brief.