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Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP): Legacy of a Youth Employment Initiative

About LEAP

Learn and Earn to Achieve Poten­tial (LEAP)™ was a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar ini­tia­tive to increase employ­ment and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple fac­ing some of the great­est chal­lenges on the path to adult­hood. The ini­tia­tive — which is now com­plete — ran for eight years, from 2016 to 2024. It was par­tial­ly fund­ed by a grant from the Social Inno­va­tion Fund, a pro­gram of the Cor­po­ra­tion for Nation­al and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice and the fed­er­al agency for vol­un­teer­ing and ser­vice pro­grams; it also received sup­port from nation­al and local philanthropies.

LEAP focused on sup­port­ing work­force readi­ness for oppor­tu­ni­ty youth — a group defined as youth and young adults between the ages of 14 to 25 who have expe­ri­enced fos­ter care, the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem or homeless.

By design, LEAP was ori­ent­ed around help­ing young peo­ple with:

  • forg­ing con­nec­tions to sup­port­ive adults who can pro­vide help with the tran­si­tion to adulthood;
  • oppor­tu­ni­ties to devel­op aca­d­e­m­ic skills to progress in school;
  • learn­ing job-readi­ness skills they can use to get jobs and keep them;
  • con­nect­ing with resources in their com­mu­ni­ties to address their health, hous­ing child care or oth­er needs;
  • fos­ter­ing a con­ti­nu­ity of ser­vices so that youth can keep get­ting sup­port after they start school or work.

Dur­ing LEAP’s first phase, the Foun­da­tion pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal fund­ing and sup­port to local part­ners in 13 cities and eight states over three years. In this phase, par­tic­i­pat­ing orga­ni­za­tions adapt­ed two nation­al evi­dence-based mod­els to help youth succeed. 

Dur­ing LEAP’s sec­ond phase, six of the 10 orga­ni­za­tions received addi­tion­al fund­ing to fur­ther expand path­ways for young peo­ple. Dur­ing this five-year peri­od, par­tic­i­pat­ing orga­ni­za­tions focused on meet­ing young adults’ needs and engag­ing pub­lic sys­tem part­ners to con­nect more youth to sup­port­ive career pathways.

Key Facts About LEAP

Through LEAP, the Foun­da­tion iden­ti­fied effec­tive strate­gies for help­ing youth and young adults over­come chal­lenges and suc­ceed in school and at work.

The ini­tia­tive adapt­ed two estab­lished, nation­al mod­els for sup­port­ing youth:

  1. The Jobs for Amer­i­ca’s Grad­u­ates (JAG) mod­el serves young peo­ple who had not yet com­plet­ed high school.
  2. The Jobs for the Future’s Back on Track mod­el serves young peo­ple mak­ing the tran­si­tion to col­lege or post sec­ondary training.

What we know about the youth par­tic­i­pat­ing in LEAP:

  • Over 5,400 youth enrolled in LEAP through Dec. 31, 2023.
    • Phase one report­ed 2,947 youth enrollees.
    • Phase two report­ed 2,489 youth enrollees.
  • Young par­ents rep­re­sent­ed 16% of all LEAP participants.
  • Black youth, Lati­no youth and women were among the most rep­re­sent­ed participants.

Six orga­ni­za­tions were fund­ed for the full initiative:

  1. Coali­tion for Respon­si­ble Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment (Los Ange­les, CA)
  2. Covenant House Alas­ka (Anchor­age, AK)
  3. The Door (New York, NY)
  4. Nebras­ka Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies Foun­da­tion(Lin­coln, NE)
  5. Project for Pride in Liv­ing (Min­neapo­lis, MN)
  6. South Bay Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices (San Diego, CA)

All six part­ner­ships adopt­ed a holis­tic approach to work­ing young peo­ple that focused on con­sid­er­ing the whole per­son and all the sys­tems they may inter­act with.

Phase one also includ­ed the fol­low­ing organizations:

  1. Cen­ter for Alter­na­tive Sen­tenc­ing and Employ­ment Ser­vices (Los Ange­les, CA)
  2. Jobs for Arizona’s Grad­u­ates (Phoenix, AZ)
  3. Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Maine (Port­land ME)
  4. Jobs for Michi­gan’s Grad­u­ates (Ben­ton Har­bor, MI)

What LEAP Accomplished

Eval­u­a­tions occurred at sev­er­al points of LEAP’s eight-year run. In 2019, MDRC eval­u­at­ed LEAP’s imple­men­ta­tion at the end of phase one and found that:

  • Over half of LEAP par­tic­i­pants went on to enroll in post­sec­ondary edu­ca­tion or advanced training. 
  • 39% of all youth con­nect­ed to LEAP found jobs and 68% main­tained employ­ment for at least six months.
  • The post­sec­ondary attain­ment rate for LEAP par­tic­i­pants was on par with nation­al aver­ages for young adults overall.

LEARN MORE ABOUT LEAP’S EAR­LY ACHIEVEMENTS

    Data on LEAP’s sec­ond phase, report­ed in June 2023 and rep­re­sent­ing over 2,100 youth, indi­cat­ed that:

    • 22% of LEAP youth had earned their high school diplo­ma while 6% had earned their GED or high school diplo­ma equivalent.
    • 23% had obtained part-time employment. 
    • 26% had entered a two- or four-year college.
    • 50% had improved their finan­cial lit­er­a­cy skills

    Anoth­er look at the sec­ond phase of LEAP — this one involv­ing 2,500 youth par­tic­i­pants — found that 

    • The major­i­ty (76%) of Back on Track par­tic­i­pants enrolled in post­sec­ondary or advanced train­ing, which is on part with nation­al aver­ages for all youth. 
    • 45% of JAG grad­u­ates obtained employ­ment or were placed in work-based learning.
    • 38% of JAG for youth attained a high school diplo­ma or GED.

    What We’ve Learned: Best Prac­tices in Work­force Readi­ness for Youth

    The learn­ings from LEAP empha­sized how impor­tant it is for youth-serv­ing orga­ni­za­tions and lead­ers to:

    • Cre­ate an inten­tion­al pro­gram­mat­ic and sys­tems change agenda. 
    • Help meet young people’s basic needs; oth­er­wise, suc­cess on path­ways will be limited.
    • Work with cross-sec­tor part­ners; find cham­pi­ons with­in orga­ni­za­tions and institutions. 
    • Build sup­port­ive one-on-one rela­tion­ships with young peo­ple to under­stand their needs and dreams. 
    • Work on small and large pol­i­cy and prac­tices changes; even small changes can make a big dif­fer­ence for young peo­ple who are impact­ed by systems. 
    • Engage young peo­ple in pro­gram­mat­ic and system.

    Rani­ta Jain, a senior asso­ciate with the Casey Foundation’s Cen­ter for Eco­nom­ic Oppor­tu­ni­ty, reflect­ed on the lessons that emerged from LEAP. These were: 

    • Young peo­ple thrive when sys­tems work for them. LEAP grantees invest­ed in part­ner­ships that enabled them to build net­works of​“holis­tic” sup­port for young peo­ple that extend­ed beyond paths to a career or edu­ca­tion. These part­ner­ships helped con­nect sys­tems-involved youth with resources like hous­ing, trans­porta­tion and child care.
    • Path­ways need to fol­low the lives of young peo­ple. LEAP part­ners rec­og­nized that young people’s expe­ri­ences enter­ing the work­force or pur­su­ing edu­ca­tion were often unique and influ­enced by oth­er pri­or­i­ties such as par­ent­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties, earn­ing addi­tion­al income or tak­ing care of their men­tal health. In response, part­ner­ships focused on devel­op­ing flex­i­ble learn­ing expe­ri­ences tai­lored to each young person’s needs. They also cre­at­ed strate­gies like the LEAP​“pause but­ton,” which allowed young peo­ple to exit and re-enter the pro­gram as need­ed while still receiv­ing sup­port and resources.
    • Invest­ing in youth lead­er­ship mat­ters. LEAP part­ner­ships like the nation­al youth fel­low­ship pro­gram encour­aged young peo­ple to take on new chal­lenges and grow. We learned that engag­ing youth in LEAP imple­men­ta­tion improves pro­gram­ming and sup­ports the per­son­al devel­op­ment of young peo­ple. A core pri­or­i­ty of LEAP was to strength­en young people’s capac­i­ty as lead­ers and cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for them to design and lead change in their com­mu­ni­ties.
    • When it comes to scale, think out­side the box. As LEAP part­ner­ships sought to expand access to sup­port­ive path­ways to careers and edu­ca­tion, they learned to think cre­ative­ly about scale — and that achiev­ing scale means more than just increas­ing enroll­ment num­bers. Thought­ful­ly scal­ing LEAP path­ways required expand­ing into new loca­tions, train­ing staff as well as grow­ing state or local partnerships. 

    Where We’re Head­ing Now for Youth Employ­ment Programs

    Although LEAP has con­clud­ed, the Casey Foun­da­tion’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty youth and youth employ­ment pro­grams will con­tin­ue. In 2023, the ini­tia­tive’s par­tic­i­pants gath­ered to dis­cuss their chal­lenges and suc­cess­es. These dis­cus­sions yield­ed three key take­aways that can help inform new youth employ­ment efforts. These take­aways are: 

    1. Youth engage­ment is essen­tial. Young peo­ple were cen­tral to LEAP’s part­ner­ships and accom­plish­ments across the coun­try. Beyond shap­ing the design of career and edu­ca­tion pro­grams, youth served as pow­er­ful advo­cates, call­ing for resources and sup­port that their peers need to thrive.
    2. Scale strate­gies for today and tomor­row. LEAP part­ner­ships con­sid­ered mul­ti­ple scal­ing strate­gies at once. These includ­ed expand­ing their geo­graph­ic reach, expand­ing their demo­graph­ic reach — such as adding immi­grant youth — and forg­ing strate­gic part­ner­ships with pub­lic sys­tems. The work of LEAP part­ners also afford­ed orga­ni­za­tions a use­ful win­dow into the nuances of scal­ing work to bet­ter serve young people.
    3. Embrace inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships. Through LEAP, part­ners devel­oped cross-sys­tem rela­tion­ships with com­­mu­ni­­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions, schools, employ­er part­ners and juve­nile jus­tice and child wel­fare sys­tems. These part­ner­ships sparked a num­ber of pro­duc­tive evo­lu­tions, includ­ing improv­ing process­es between child wel­fare and work­force agen­cies, adding class­rooms in juve­nile deten­tion facil­ities and more.

    In 2026, the Unit­ed States expand­ed its Pell Grant pro­gram to cov­er short­er-term train­ing pro­grams offered out­side of a tra­di­tion­al degree path­way. Sev­er­al Casey Foun­da­tion grantees are help­ing ensure that these work­force Pell Grants ful­fill their promise to expand oppor­tu­ni­ty for young people. 

    Addi­tion­al LEAP Resources