7. 7
Urban Alliance provides professional
development to under-resourced
youth through a 10-month paid
internship.
Job Skills
Training
Job
Placement
Career
Mentorship
Post-HS
Coaching
Alumni
Support
16. Dan Tsin
Director of Data & Accountability
Urban Alliance
dtsin@theurbanalliance.org
Urban Alliance
Editor's Notes
Good afternoon! I’m Dan Tsin – the Director of Data & Accountability at the Urban Alliance, nonprofit that uses professional skill training, work experience and mentorship to help young people connect to pathways that lead to self-sufficiency. Founded in 1996, we’ve placed over 2,000 young people in professional internships and provided skills training to another 15,000. We’re currently working in 4 regions: Washington DC – our home base - Baltimore, Chicago and Northern Virginia.
It helps to start with the problem we’re trying to solve.
Right now, there are close to 7 million young people across the country who are out of work and out of school. This leads to incredible consequences – not just on the affected young person, though that’s obvious, but for his community and society as well.
Each disconnected youth can cost society roughly $700,000 over the cost of his lifetime when you factor in lost earnings, lower economic growth, lower tax revenues, and high government spending. Multiple by that by each disconnected youth out there, and it’s a number too massive – and expensive – to ignore.
The startling part is not just the number, but that this isn’t limited to high school drop outs. Some 3 million of this total are enrolled in high school past the age of 16, and still find themselves disconnected. SO yes – we need solutions to reconnect disconnected students. But we should also be thinking about solutions that prevent disconnection from happening in the first place – especially while we have these students in our schools.
At Urban Alliance, we believe that comprehensive, early employment programs provide such a solution. These opportunities can help young people before they disconnect from school and jobs.
Early work experience has been shown to
Increase high school graduation rates and lead to greater educational attainment,
Actually change young people’s definition of success and their motivation to achieve it,
It gives an important opportunity to gain exposure to and practice key professional soft skills,
Helps young people develop sense of self-efficacy,
And serves as a strong predictor of future earnings
So obviously jobs are key element of youth employment programs.. But it’s not any employment opportunity that moves the needle on preventing disconnection.
The opportunity needs to allow the student an opportunity to develop key, professional skills. Things like the ability to work in teams, to communicate clearly, to work through a problem. We’ve got a list of these that we teach and test for at Urban Alliance – and each tied through research to increases in educational attainment, employability and future wages.
The opportunity needs to offer the availability of a positive adult relationship – not just someone who gives feedback and sets expectations, though that’s really important, but builds a trusting, bonded relationship. We’ve found this helps foster leadership skills and responsibility.
And finally, the actual setting where students can practice these skills and have these interactions is important. Our internships open a world that students would have never thought possible. At UA, we find that many of our students – even as seniors in high school - have never been to their city’s downtown or business center. And now they’re employees of the World Bank or the mayor’s office. What an incredible change from the experiences of their peers and families.
So who benefits from these kinds of programs?
We’ve been operating in high-poverty schools and neighborhoods, almost entirely in urban settings. From failing schools to difficult home environments, our young people experience a number of challenges that can keep them from easily transitioning into adulthood.
Here’s how our program works.
Before ever stepping foot in a jobsite, interns get a ‘professionalism boot camp’ – a 6-week crash course that we call ‘pre-work’ focusing on communication, office etiquette, goal setting and job-readiness skills.
Students are then placed at their internships where they can receive up to 600 hours of on-the-job work experience at banks, law firms, government agencies. We have an intern at the Chicago Bulls – the only 17 year old I’d trade jobs with.
Interns meet together as a cohort for continued professional development designed to improve their internship and plan for life after it. We focus on topics such as financial literacy and college preparation;
And finally, they’re coached by on-site mentor to shape their professional growth and increase their networks.
What makes this sustainable is that employers benefit as well. If done the right way, youth employment programs provide real value to the partnering organization, separate from benefiting their corporate social responsibility.. These benefits include:
Helping build local community workforce,
Improved workplace diversity – not just of age and race, but of life experience.
Improved office culture – studies have shown that the presence of young people improves employee satisfaction and retention,
And managerial training for junior level staffers. You have employees who might have otherwise not been managers now in charge of other people, setting deliverables and managing projects. What amazing real, hand’s on training!
We’re able to track benefits for both the youth AND the employer. We’ve found that 80% of our alumni remained connected in their pathway – whether its school, work or continued training – one year after the program. In addition, 80% of our job partners return each year, letting us know they value the experience as well.
In the past few years, we’ve been in the midst of a large randomized control trial, comparing our interns to a control group. The goal is to isolate the impact only on participating in Urban Alliance. Our early findings suggest that UA has pretty extreme benefits on college access for men and middle-tier students and on skill access and exposure for all students. Look out for the release of the report early next year.
Of course, don’t listen to me . Just ask our First Lady, seen here visiting our Chicago program.
We think this solution can be delivered in more cities and districts, but its not without its challenges.
It’s obvious that internship programs don’t exist without the corporate support. And we’ll save the strategies and recommendations for courting businesses for a different discussion. For now, let’s look at convincing schools.
The question district leaders and principles should be asking themselves is whether they should allow their students to fully participate in employment programs? And I think the answer is “Yes”, if they believe these work experiences are just as valuable as sitting in a classroom.
First – they should realize – that soft skills training is shown to improve not just professionalism, but classroom performance as well. These skills won’t just help students finish high school, but succeed in college, too. And post-secondary success is still an accountability measure for schools and districts.
It’s also a valuable strategy for helping disengaged students stay in school by helping them connect the dots between the classroom and the real world. Responding to a poll commissioned by the Gates Foundation, 81% of high school dropouts [responding to the survey] said that real-world experiences that connected school with work would have helped keep them in school.
If schools and districts recognize the value of employment programs, there are still polices they can enact to promote and encourage internships:
First, Offer high school credit for them – students shouldn’t have to choose between taking a class for credit or taking part in the internship learning experience. This will also allow students who might need extra credits or courses towards the end of high school – some of the students most helped by these kinds of programs - the option of participating.
Second, Allow flexible high school schedules – Allow early release for working students to take advantage of when businesses are open
And finally, Train counselors and teachers on how to connect students to job prospects and professional networks
I appreciate the time and space to share here. Urban Alliance fully supports the notion that important, life-changing learning can happen anywhere for our students. Internships and work programs are a great example of that and we hope even more students will have the opportunity to participate. Thanks so much.
