Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth

Update (May 3, 2016): The Notice Inviting Applications has been released for a second round of the Performance Partnership Pilot for Disconnected Youth (P3). Read the full notice at Youth.gov, or register for the P3 National Webinar to be held May 9 at 1 p.m. EDT to discuss application requirements and selection criteria. You can also learn more about the second call for proposals in the Family Room, the official blog of the Administration for Children and Families.

The following is cross-posted from the U.S. Department of Education's blog. See the original blog post here.

We all share the goal of improving education, employment, and other key outcomes for youth, especially those who are disconnected from work, school, or other social supports. The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB)  is pleased to join with the interagency Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3) initiative in announcing nine pilot projects to improve outcomes for this underserved population. These pilot projects give state, local, and tribal governments an opportunity to test innovative new strategies to improve such outcomes for low-income disconnected youth ages 14 to 24, including youth who are in foster care, homeless youth, young parents, justice-involved youth, youth who are unemployed, or youth who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out of school.

The idea is simple: P3 gives communities greater flexibility to use the federal dollars they already have more effectively, and they agree to be more accountable for concrete outcomes. This first set of pilot projects will test flexibility with federal youth-serving funds in diverse environments across America, including urban, rural, and tribal communities. Pilot sites include:

• Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Broward County, Florida
• Chicago, Illinois
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Los Angeles, California
• The State of Oklahoma
• Seattle, Washington
• Southeastern Kentucky, including Bell, Clay, Harlan, Knox, Leslie, Letcher, and Perry Counties
• Ysleta del Sur Pueblo

Pilot projects will implement solutions that include, for example, helping low-income moms acquire the skills to become better parents while gaining valuable job experience through childcare internships, helping foster youth successfully transition from high school to college or employment, and intervening with the highest-risk youth before they drop out of high school. In the coming weeks, Federal agencies and these projects will finalize performance agreements that will support the pilot projects’ work and outline the outcomes these solutions will be measured against.   

Led by the Department of Education, P3 brings together six federal agencies including the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Justice as well as the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Institute for Museum and Library Services to help communities address common barriers. For example, practitioners and advocates on the front lines of service delivery have let agencies know that better outcomes are hindered sometimes by programmatic and administrative obstacles, such as fragmented data systems and program stovepipes resulting in poor coordination. P3 pilots can tackle these challenges more effectively by blending together certain federal funds that they already receive from the participating agencies and by acquiring new waivers and flexibility under federal statutes, regulations, and other requirements. 

The P3 model emphasizes evidence and learning, both within communities and at a national level. The P3 competition asked projects to match existing evidence of what works with community challenges identified through a needs assessment and to demonstrate how they will use reliable data to guide decision-making and be accountable for better outcomes. All nine pilot projects responded to the competition’s incentive to rigorously evaluate the impact of at least one component of their on-site approach. Federal agencies will also conduct a national cross-site evaluation of how pilot projects implement the P3 model, their strategies, challenges, and outcomes. Findings will help strengthen how agencies and the field address disconnected youth needs in the future.

To help prepare for the second P3 competition, which will be held this winter, the Department of Education has released a Notice of Proposed Priorities on behalf of participating agencies to seek ideas from the field on strengthening this important initiative and empowering communities to think big about reconnecting youth.

Federal Register: Proposed Priorities, Requirements, Definitions, and Selection Criteria-Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth.

Youth.gov: P3 FY2014 Pilot Sites.

Youth.gov: Additional Information on P3 Finalists.

Department of Education: Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth.