Youth Collaboratory Inc

Preventing and Ending Youth Homelessness: In the United States, 4.2 million youth and young adults experience homelessness each year, 700,000 of whom are minors. A wide body of research has demonstrated these youth experience significant challenges impacting their health, well-being, and academic success, including significantly high rates of victimization, exploitation, and trafficking. Unfortunately, the number of youth experiencing homelessness each year in this nation far exceeds our current resources. Currently, only 35% of homeless youth seeking housing are being served, leaving 65% to languish on the streets. Further, recent research shows these long waits are not only harmful but also increase the likelihood they will experience homelessness again.In response, Youth Collaboratory has focused on working with homeless youth providers, researchers, government agencies, philanthropists, and youth to design coordinated community systems that both reduce the number of youth experiencing homelessness and effectively respond to youth homelessness when it occurs.Youth Collaboratory provides training and capacity building services to organizations to meet the immediate needs of youth and young adults experiencing homelessness and housing instability. Youth Collaboratory provides trainings, toolkits, and consultation to organizations and professionals working with these young people to assist them on a successful path to adulthood. Our partners include nonprofit youth serving organizations, communities, and federal departments, including the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Department of Justice (DOJ).

Building Community: Several Individual, social, and environmental risk factors increase the likelihood that young people are at risk of victimization, delinquency, or involvement in the juvenile justice system. Youth Collaboratory supports organizations in utilizing evidence-based community building practices to reduce these risk factors and increase protective factors that build resiliency. This includes leveraging formal and informal mentoring relationships to broaden connections to other networks, supports, and opportunities for young people. Grounded in evidence-based practice and a Positive Youth Development framework, Youth Collaboratory created the Mentoring+ program model. This model supports building communities with young people. Organizations using the Mentoring+ model have experienced several promising outcomes, including: 100% of mentees at high risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system have not offended or re-offended, 97% of mentors maintained a relationship with a mentee for at least a year, and 75% of mentees demonstrated increased social competence. Through this work, Youth Collaboratory has supported programs in 37 states who serve more than 160,000 youth and families annually.