Each year, the Opportunity Youth Forum‘s external evaluators, Equal Measure, conduct an extensive assessment of the progress of OYF, looking at the characteristics of collaboratives, and collaborative capacity; they also assess, annually, progress made on systems-level changes in OYF communities (these include such things as policy and funding changes, and cross-system pathways, among other areas). In this year’s report, Equal Measure looks at progress over the past five years, as well as more intensively over the past year. This year we combine this data for the first time with data about changes in the numbers of opportunity youth in OYF communities.
Progress Highlights from the Report:
- The youth disconnection rate, or the percentage of 16–24-year-olds not in school and not working in OYF communities, has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels, with an almost two percentage point drop between 2021 and 2022 (13.1% to 11.4%).
- Two-thirds of collaboratives improved their collaborative capacity from 2022 to 2023.
- There continues to be a proven consistent relationship between strong collaborative capacity and the ability to improve local systems serving young people.
- Preliminary data indicates that collaboratives with greater evidence of systems change in 2019 tended to have lower youth disconnection rates in 2022.
These data highlights support validation of the OYF Theory of Change – that strong local OY collaboratives lead changes in local systems, which ultimately lead to the goal of OYF’s work: reduced numbers of opportunity youth and less youth disconnection.
For more information, and other findings from across the OYF network, please see the OYF 2023 Annual Assessment: