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The Levitan Center has created and supported a variety of initiatives that build capacity and improve delivery systems to provide holistic assistance to meet the needs of specific target populations. The Levitan Center is committed to bringing the necessary inter-agency government services, community providers and faith-based organizations together in a comprehensive and coordinated way. By investing in collaborative planning and delivery, these initiatives have yielded significant results for the populations served, holding great promise for the individuals served. CURRENT INITIATIVESACADEMY FOR COLLEGE AND CAREER EXPLORATION HIGH SCHOOL The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with several
Baltimore-based donors, granted $20 million to the Fund for Educational
Excellence in Baltimore to encourage Baltimore City Public Schools
to create smaller learning environments for high school students.
Part of this initiative envisioned creating six to eight new “Innovation
High Schools.” Students have the opportunity to participate in many college and career-focused activities, including internships, career training labs, and a menu of activities on the ACCE campus and at partner locations across the city. The program is year-round, offering summer activities (employment and remediation), and runs on a 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. schedule to simulate the work world. This schedule enables students to participate in a specifically designed freshman seminar, “21st Century Careers,” and a rich variety of career exploration offerings such as “Careers in the Arts” and “Careers through Service Learning”. ACCE opened in September 2004 with a 9th grade class and has enrolled a new cohort each year. The 1st class of graduates will be in the Spring of 2008. Active partners include The Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore City Community College, the Baltimore Workforce Investment Board, the city government, and many volunteers.
The overall purpose of the Levitan Center’s involvement with the Transformation Project (TP) funded through the Mental Health Transformation Grant to the State Department of Mental Health is to assist the mental health system in learning how to maximize the value and resources of other systems. During the first year of a two-year grant, in-depth research and focus groups will be conducted with consumers, provider staff, both administrative and line, and families in order to gain insights and recommendations from those most actively involved with the current mental health system. The target group of consumers will be those involved in both supported work and residential rehab housing, and information will be identified as to the steps needed to move consumers closer to independence and recovery. After all focus groups have been conducted, findings will be collected and analyzed to determine common themes and issues. Based on the analysis of this data, recommendations will be developed with the intent to strengthen the resources and involvement of other systems. Continual feedback will be provided to the TP, both to share findings and to determine if refinements in the instruments used are warranted.
The Prisoner Reentry Initiative is a joint effort of the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor to provide ex-offenders with the necessary skills to successfully reintegrate in the community. The initiative relies heavily on faith based and community based organizations in 30 communities throughout the country as primary partners for service delivery to ex-offenders. As primary grantees, these faith based and community based organizations develop relationships and deliver rehabilitation services to the formerly incarcerated and use existing relationships with public, private, and nonprofit providers to open doors to additional resources. The Levitan Center’s role is to work with the primary technical assistance provider Coffey Communications, LLC and other Institute for Policy Studies staff to support the Prisoner Reentry grantees with information and training to successfully design and implement their projects. Specifically, technical assistance is intended to strengthen urban communities through an employment-centered program that incorporates mentoring, job training and other comprehensive transitional services to break the cycle of crime and delinquency that contributes to recidivism.
The Beneficiary Choice Contracting Model has been designed to help ex- offenders (ages 18 to 29) receive services and training, enter and retain employment, and avoid recidivism. Under this model, the individual receiving government-funded services (beneficiary) is offered a genuine and independent choice among multiple providers. Each provider offers the same core services, as well as a unique combination of related services. Since service providers are allowed flexibility in the combination of and approach to services they offer, this model fosters a diversity of service styles in service delivery. This diversity, in turn, enables each recipient to choose the provider best suited to his or her unique needs and encourages a greater personal engagement as the recipient takes ownership in choosing among a variety of services and providers. The Levitan Center team, through Coffey Consults LLC., provides Technical Assistance to the grantee’s as well as act as the liaison for the Department Of Labor. The technical assistance aspect covers providing training in the areas of MIS, Case Management, Retention & Follow-up, Fiscal, partner shipping, and overall project supervision along with the Federal Project Officers. The Levitan Center also plays a vital role in conference planning, the building of local, state, and Federal resources and monthly reporting to DOL.
PAST INITIATIVES “Funds Follow Students” refers to a non-traditional education strategy that aims to re-enroll young people who have dropped out of school in a formal education program leading to a high school credential. The National Council on Employment Policy and the Sar Levitan Center partnered with the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development and Harbor City High School to operationalize this strategy in Baltimore City. Traditionally, when a student drops out of school and is officially taken off the school roster, the school no longer receives funding to support that student. However, if this student can be re-engaged in an alternative educational setting, this strategy enables funding to be redirected to non-traditional providers to support that student’s education. By creating a link between the non-traditional education provider and a Baltimore City high school, the “per pupil expenditure” that would typically support the student at the comprehensive high school follows the student to the non-traditional setting. The Levitan Center’s role in this initiative involves oversight, monitoring, system-building, and technical assistance to the organizations operating the non-traditional programs.
Eligible young people must be 16-21 years of age and must live in
the city’s Empowerment Zones. In addition to educational opportunities,
participating young people also have access to a menu of youth development
and workforce development activities. When FFS was implemented in
Baltimore City, an individual high school – Harbor City High
School – served as the official public school link to all
the alternative education providers. The students who dropped out
are officially enrolled at Harbor City High School to receive public
funding, but they are educated by other organizations. In Baltimore,
those providers included The Door, a faith-based community organization
and Sylvan Learning, a for-profit educational organization. Maryland’s Tomorrow provided multiyear, intensive, dropout prevention services to students at risk of dropping out of school in all 24 Maryland school systems. A unique initiative, Maryland’s Tomorrow brought together the workforce development system with the education system at both the state and local levels to provide comprehensive services that helped youth stay in school, meet the competences and requirements for high school graduation, and transition to work and post secondary learning. With an emphasis on supportive services and the provision of career experiences, the program operated year-round—enabling youth to engage in work-based learning, leadership development, and unique methods of achieving skills for success in school and life. The Sar Levitan Center provided leadership, direction, technical assistance and support—working in conjunction with the Maryland State Department of Education and the Department of Economic and Employment Development—through an interagency management team—to bring together state and federal funds and resource capacity from multiple organizations. The aim was to create a seamless service system for at risk youth supported by state education and federal employment training dollars. The multi-year, multiple site evaluation showed Maryland’s Tomorrow to be a very successful strategy of dropout prevention.
Ready4Work is a national demonstration program that seeks to reduce crime and recidivism by positively impacting the lives of formerly incarcerated adults and youth through case management, mentoring, education and job training and placement services. Public/ Private Ventures, with the support of the US Department of Labor and the Annie E. Casey Foundation is implementing the program in seventeen sites in throughout the country. Public/Private Ventures is partnering with the Levitan Center to effectively design and implement the case management component of the Ready4Work program. The Levitan Center developed a case management guide book to help sites develop policies and train staff and introduced the concepts to the sites in a webinar conference held in September 2005 . In addition, the Levitan Center provides on site technical assistance to help sites apply the tools in the guide book to daily practices. The Ready4Work Conference, will feature a workshop hosted by the Levitan Center that emphasizes interactive case management exercises, the exchange of best practices, and the attributes of an effective case management system.
The Levitan Center along with Public/ Private Ventures has set out to bring an innovative after-school and summer literacy program to Baltimore. The program, Youth Education for Tomorrow (YET) uses research based instruction techniques that are consistent with No Child Left Behind’s mandates to improve the reading performance of children. Since the program's inception, YET has expanded to reach more than 7,300 children in over 420 after school classrooms throughout the nation. The Levitan Center is using its community connections to encourage faith-based and community-based organizations in Baltimore to adopt the YET model in their after-school programs. The implementation of the YET model requires that organizations become Maryland State Supplemental Education Providers (SES), after-school organizations that are certified to provide academically enriching activities to students of Title I schools. The Levitan Center will work side by side with P/PV technical staff and organizations throughout the SES application process. Following the approval of the organization as an SES provider, the Levitan Center will continue to provide support through workshops, on site observations and a literacy coach, who will provide technical assistance.
Youth Development Practitioner Apprenticeship (YDPA) is an education and training program for youth workers. Through a structured apprenticeship program, which includes formal instruction and on-the-job training, youth practitioners develop the skills they need to effectively serve youth in their communities. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to strengthen the field of youth work and improve youth service delivery by providing quality training opportunities for youth practitioners. In recognition of the National Council on Employment Policy and
the IPS Sar Levitan Center’s previous efforts to improve the
youth service system, the Levitan Center was selected by the Department
of Labor in 2001 to become the National Clearinghouse for the YDPA
initiative. As part of this role, we are responsible for collecting
and disseminating information on program implementation and effective
practices, facilitating a communication network among the 16 local
and national grantees, convening a national sustainability advisory
board, marketing and outreach to expand the initiative, and coordinating
and providing on-site and remote technical assistance. In addition,
the Center maintains a website devoted to YDPA.
The Levitan Center’s ongoing role in this effort has been in several areas. First, we offer technical assistance to the 29 sites around the country on program practices and policies for integrating juvenile justice practices and programs with the existing workforce investment system. Secondly, we assisted USDOL staff in the development of the management information system for the entire network, “staffed” this system, provide the “help desk” for the 29 sites and provide the US Department of Labor (USDOL) with an ongoing analysis of program performance and outcomes. Lastly, our role is to examine the local grantee projects in order to identify promising practices and to both document the practice and package the relevant information so that other projects in the network may determine its suitability for their operations. The work tasks that are a part of this effort include the review of data and analysis of outcomes and the identification and reporting on best practices. Currently, webinars on alternative education and using data to improve program performance are in development.
The Youth Practitioner’s Institute, developed and operated by the Sar Levitan Center in partnership with Baltimore City Community College, provided comprehensive professional development to staff and supervisors employed by the Baltimore Youth Opportunities (YO) System, operated through the Baltimore Mayor’s Office for Employment Development. The initiative included three critical components: 1. Extensive-Orientation and ongoing professional development for staff in a wide range of needs-based areas to strengthen how case managers, job developers, job coaches and recruiters provided services to the out of school and in-school youth population in the empowerment zones served by the Baltimore Youth Opportunities System. Training focused on:
• The essentials of youth development 2. Management development and program operations based training to help supervisors and center managers acquire and apply skills for improved center operation and enhanced services for youth. 3. An apprenticeship-like component whereby program participants served by the Baltimore Youth Opportunities System and interested in acquiring the skills and experience to become case managers, recruiters, job coaches and job developers participated in a one year on-the-job training program with supportive classroom instruction. Upon meeting designated competencies, the “apprentices” receive priority consideration with the YO system.
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