Youth Development Initiatives

YDI's Career Academy engages disadvantaged high school students after school in evidence-based life skills, career advisement, and vocational skills training in which they create pathway plans out of poverty based on earning a living wage.  The program's primary focus is to help students of color establish and follow-through with individualized career and post-high school education plans.  

YDI's year-round after school programming specifically addresses the education access/quality and economic stability needs of vulnerable youth as identified by community stakeholders. The program objectives align with the Career & College Readiness focus area of the Opportunity Task Force's "System Strategy" as detailed in the Leading On Opportunity report.  The report specifically identified exposing all children to viable career options and educational pathways through career exploration/guidance and work-based learning experiences as necessities to help them break the cycle of poverty. 

According to statistics on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School (CMS) district, the student failure rate more than doubled from 7.1% to 14.4% during the 1920-21 school year.  Currently, since 2016, the 4-year cohort graduation rate dropped 7% from 90% to 83%. Additionally, students attending our target schools have a testing proficiency about 21% below the rest of the district, and less than 35% of high school graduates in these communities are pursuing college or a vocational program.  

YDI's focus on serving adolescent students of color (ages 13-18) offers the strongest and quickest return on investment (ROI) for assisting families in the transition out of poverty.  It is critically important a continuum of services be established that span multiple years and provide the consistent structure and support teenagers need to get to and THROUGH high school. YDI aims to create a meaningful and measurable continuum of care/support for our scholars and families at this crucial juncture in their academic, social-emotional, and life-job skills development process beginning with a three-phase, two year comprehensive career academy program model. 

Phase1A of the 2-year program model began during the summer with rising 9th graders from underperforming middle schools who needed academic enrichment and career exploration exposure as they transition into high school. Research shows that disadvantaged students of color transitioning from low-performing middle schools into equally low-performing high schools face long odds to succeed not only in secondary school, but in life.  

According to the research report entitled Career Development With Adolescents from High Poverty, “young people who reside in areas of concentrated poverty … face challenges that can affect their future opportunities. They tend to go to schools with higher dropout rates, have fewer local job opportunities, have less work experience, have weaker job-seeking networks, and have a greater risk of unemployment after leaving high school. They also tend to lack sufficient career information and career development guidance have fewer opportunities to investigate educational and career options and have fewer opportunities to acquire the career development skills needed to be successful in a changing and highly demanding job market.”  

Phase1B operations with YDI scholars commence shortly after school starts in the fall and spans their first semester as full-fledged 9th graders.  During this phase, YDI provides ongoing academic support, career exploration/post-high school education guidance, and mentoring twice weekly. YDI also partners with the guidance counseling and Career Technical Education (CTE) departments at our scholars' high school(s) to track academic progress and to ensure students connect their SMART goals/post-high school education plans to career planning resources/opportunities at school. 

Phase2 starts the second semester of 9th grade when YDI engages scholars in formal job readiness (resume writing/interviewing) and financial literacy skills training, as well as introduce them to the basics of community service project planning.  YDI scholars also produce an online Life skills Portfolio construction project.  Finally, the following summer, YDI scholars who satisfactory complete a life skills portfolio, demonstrate progress towards reaching individualized academic/attendance/behavioral goals, and achieve proficiency during the job readiness training will benefit from paid work experiences, which is Phase3 of the program model.