Creating an Education-to-Career SystemMade in Durham’s Action Plan for Fiscal Year 2016

July 1, 2015-June 30, 2016

MADE IN DURHAMP r e p a r i n g O u r Yo u t h f o r C a r e e r s

Creating an Education-to-Career System | 1

MADE IN DURHAMP r e p a r i n g O u r Yo u t h f o r C a r e e r s

Made in Durham is a community partnership of educators, business, government, nonprofits, youth and young adults mobilized around a shared vision

that all of Durham’s youth will complete high school and a postsecondary credential and begin a

rewarding career by the age of 25.

359 Blackwell St., Suite 200, Durham, NC 27701919.627.6420 | info@madeindurham.org

www.madeindurham.org

Creating an Education-to-Career System | 1

Mobilizing for Youth Success and Community Prosperity

Business, education and nonprofit leaders across Durham have come together in an unprecedented collaboration during the past three years to transform the way we prepare our young people for careers and life success.

Our work took a major step forward in February 2015 when we formalized this collaboration. The Made in Durham Task Force created a nonprofit organization with a Board of Directors, Advisory Team, Action Teams, small staff and growing network of partners focused on a single shared vision that all Durham youth and young adults will complete a postsecondary credential and begin a rewarding career by age 25.

Our goal is to align and build on the many successful programs and initiatives already underway in Durham to create an education-to-career system that gives Durham youth the quality education, training and support they need to prepare them for successful adulthood and good jobs in our regional labor market.

We live in the one of the most economically prosperous regions in the world. Our many innovative, globally competitive companies produce thousands of good-paying jobs each year. Sadly, an estimated 40 percent of our young people may not be on track to compete against

newcomers to secure those jobs in their own hometown.

It is in all of our best interests to create such

a system. It will enable our young people to achieve life success and contribute economically and socially to our community. It will ensure our companies can secure the talent they need to grow and thrive.

This action plan for fiscal year 2016 outlines steps we are taking to create such a system. If you are involved already, we thank you for your dedication and commitment to this endeavor. If not, we invite you to join with us as we work to enable every young person who is “made in Durham” to enjoy a bright and rewarding future.

Victor DzauPresident, National Academy of Medicine Chair, Made in Durham

Made in Durham Board of Directors

Victor Dzau, President, National Academy of Medicine, ChairJack Bailey, President, U.S. Pharmaceuticals Manager, GlaxoSmithKline, Vice ChairAnita Brown-Graham, Director, Institute for Emerging Issues, Vice ChairAl Siemens, Chair, FHI Foundation, TreasurerAndrea Harris, Senior Policy Fellow, N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development, SecretaryDaryl Atkinson, Senior Attorney, Southern Coalition for Social JusticeCasey Barr-Rios, Member, Made in Durham Youth Network Tom Bonfield, City Manager, City of DurhamBrad Brinegar, Partner, Chairman & CEO, McKinneyWendell Davis, Manager, Durham CountyDavid Dodson, President, MDCMartin Eakes, CEO, Self-Help William Fulkerson, Executive Vice President, Duke University Health SystemJim Goodmon, President & CEO, Capitol Broadcasting CompanyKenneth Hammond, Pastor, Union Baptist ChurchWilliam Ingram, President, Durham Technical Community CollegeBert L’Homme, Superintendent, Durham Public SchoolsSamone Oates-Bullock, Member, Made in Durham Youth NetworkElaine O’Neal, N.C. Superior Court JudgeEd Paradise, Site Executive, CiscoIvan Kohar Parra, Lead Organizer, Durham CANLuis Pastor, President & CEO, Latino Community Credit Union Machelle Sanders, Vice President, Product Operations for Multiple Sclerosis, BiogenDebra Saunders-White, Chancellor, N.C. Central UniversityHenry Scherich, President, Measurement IncorporatedBill Shore, Interim President & CEO, Durham Chamber of Commerce Steven Williams, CEO, GLOBAL Ventures of North America LLCBrad Wilson, President & CEO, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Leslie Winner, Executive Director, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation

Creating an Education-to-Career System | 32 | Made in Durham FY 2016 Action Plan

Each year, Durham employers create thousands of good jobs, but too few of Durham’s youth and young adults have the skills and experience to compete successfully for those jobs.

Roughly 40 percent of our young people are not on track to complete high school, achieve a postsecondary credential of some kind, or gain employment by the time they are 25. A substantial number will struggle to get there and some will not make it at all. Most disturbing, the victims of Durham’s opportunity gap are mostly young men and women of color.

This is not a new problem and it won’t be solved quickly. But Durham is now poised to invest its people, time and resources in a long-term community-wide strategy to address it. Made in Durham will work to enable our youth ages 14-24 to gain a sound educational foundation and skills needed to make a successful transition to adulthood and productive work in our knowledge-based economy.

Our work builds on important investments Durham has already made on behalf of youth and young adults as well as the knowledge and support contributed to the Made in Durham collaboration by hundreds of business people, educators, nonprofit practitioners, youth and young adults over the past three years.

Our vision is to ensure all young people benefit from this education-to-career system. Our yardstick: the system must work as well for the most disconnected youth as for the most privileged.

Connecting Youth to the Economy

Durham’s 44,000 young people fall roughly into three broad, overlapping groups1:

• The On-track (60 percent): High school students and those enrolled in postsecondary education or training who perform close to their age group.

• The Behind (25 percent): Youth and young adults who are behind their age group in high school and/or postsecondary education.

• The Disconnected (15 percent): Youth and young adults who are far from achieving a high school diploma or work readiness and face serious barriers to further education and employment.

Put another way, 40 percent of Durham’s youth and young adults are off track.

VisionAll Durham youth and young adults will complete a postsecondary credential and begin a rewarding career by age 25.

MissionCreate an education-to-career system that enables every young person to:• Complete high school• Engage in work experiences that

prepare them for a career• Complete a postsecondary

credential • Secure living-wage work

Strategies• Strategic Leadership• Data for Decision-making• Career Pathways• Employer Engagement• Youth Engagement • Opportunity Youth

Creating an Education-to-Career System

1 Made in Durham: Building an Education-to-Career System, MDC Inc., October 2012

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institutions, and cultural and nonprofit organizations.

Triangle companies employ about 806,000 people, with about 15 percent growth projected over the next 10 years, in science and technology, entertainment and the media, management, manufacturing and services.

However, few young Durham residents are securing these jobs because they don’t have applicable credentials or work-readiness skills, necessary transportation, career knowledge or social networks.

Research shows that the prospect of a good job and a meaningful career is a powerful motivator for young people to stay in school and complete postsecondary education and training.

Engaging more employers more effectively with educators and nonprofits focused on preparing Durham youth for work can help design a career-to-education system that prepares our young people for careers and provides a pipeline of talent to help our companies compete and grow.

The long-term cost to these young people is significant: high school dropouts make $14,000 less annually than those who attended even one or two years of college and they

experience nearly three times the poverty rate.

The cost to taxpayers is equally severe. A study by City University of New York

estimates that each disconnected youth costs taxpayers $14,000 per year, or $250,000 over a lifetime. Much of that cost, including policing and loss of property taxes, occurs at the local level. In other words, the disconnected youth in Durham cost local, state and federal taxpayers between $63 million and $84 million annually.

For every 500 youth that Durham reconnects, taxpayers will save $7 million a year.

Connecting Employers with TalentDurham’s employers are as diverse as its young people. They include major corporate headquarters and small neighborhood businesses, large public and educational

Durham Youth Readiness for Careers

60% On Track High school students and those enrolled in postsecondary education or training who perform close to their age group.

25% Behind Youth and young adults who are behind their age group in high school and/or postsecondary education.

15% DisconnectedYouth and young adults who are far from achieving a high school diploma or work readiness and face serious barriers to further education and employment.

Creating an Education-to-Career System | 54 | Made in Durham FY 2016 Action Plan

Organizing for SuccessThe work of successfully transforming Durham’s education-to-career system has already begun.

Hundreds of partners from Durham’s business, education and nonprofit communities have collaborated over the past three years to review best practices, analyze local data and interrogate their own assumptions about the first steps needed to improve the future of our young people.

Their findings, conclusions and recommendations converged in a 2014 action plan developed by the Made in Durham Task Force and Policy Working Group. That plan called for a set of strategies designed to create an effective education-to-career system for Durham’s youth and young adults and the creation of a nonprofit organization to facilitate a sustained partnership effort.

Made in Durham leaders created the nonprofit organization in February 2015 to serve as the backbone of the collaboration. It includes a board of directors of top public and private leaders that sets shared goals, an Advisory Team that recommends strategy, Action Teams that implement change and staff that facilitate the collaboration.

Collectively, the nonprofit structure provides a framework for sustaining the collaboration long-term, enabling partners to align and support existing programs, identify gaps, remove barriers and develop solutions that create change system-wide.

Made in Durham

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ensures Strategies AchieveShared Goals

• Sets Strategic Direction, Responsibilities, Accountabilities

• Promotes Community-wide Engagement

for Success at Scale, including Policy

Changes• Ensures Resources• Solves Challenges/

Barriers

ADVISORYTEAM

Proposes Strategy,Ensures Implementation

• Recommends Innovations

• Ensures Alignment of Strategy Action Plans

• Facilitates Access to Information

• Recommends Solutions to Challenges & Barriers

• Supports Steps to Scale and System Policy

Change

ACTIONTEAMS

Implement, Innovate,Provide Expertise

• Identify System Strengths and Weaknesses

• Design and Implement Action Plans

• Propose Innovations• Identify Resource Needs

• Identify and Recruit Needed Action Team

Members• Identify Needed

Policies

STAFF

Facilitates a Sustained, Effective Partnership Convenes • Supports •Collaborates • Informs •Raises Resources• Communicates

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Principles of Reform

Five principles of reform drive our work.

1. Weave employment with quality education. The prospect of an exciting career, particularly with hands-on practice and workplace exposure from an early age, can be a strong motivator for students to remain in school and learn. Our new system must link and engage more employers with educators to design and offer education and career training, work-based learning opportunities and a system of career pathways leading to high-growth occupations in the region.

2. Be relentlessly customer-driven. An education-to-career system has two customers: young people and employers. Both must value what the system offers in order to participate in it. Our new system must be market-driven and deliver fast, efficient, high-quality services that prepare our young people for careers in local companies.

3. Track performance, be accountable. Goals matter. They articulate what we want to achieve, help us measure progress, analyze what’s working and improve what’s not. Our new system must be informed and evaluated by meaningful metrics that help chart our path and measure our results.

4. Bend, blend and leverage money. A sustainable system will require us to make better use of our existing resources by aligning and improving current programs and services and attract new investments from public and private sources to test new initiatives, stimulate innovation reward high performance and support strategic activities.

5. Build a purposeful partnership. We want to improve the life chances of all of Durham’s young people by expanding their horizons, developing their talent, knowledge and self-confidence, and connecting them with economic opportunities that will bring security and fulfillment in adulthood. Importantly, we must reach those disconnected youth and young adults, particularly young men and women of color, who need extra support and investment to reengage, get back on track and succeed.

Types of Work-based Learning

• Internships and Summer Jobs• Company Tours• Job Shadowing• Mock Interviews• Job Fairs• Employer Classroom

Presentations and Co-Teaching

Creating an Education-to-Career System | 76 | Made in Durham FY 2016 Action Plan

Made in Durham Action Planfor Fiscal Year 2016Vision

All Durham youth and young adults will complete a postsecondary credential and begin a rewarding career by the age of 25.

Mission

Create an education-to-career system that enables every young person to:• Complete high school• Engage in work experiences that prepare them for a career• Complete a postsecondary credential • Secure living-wage work

Strategies

Strategic Leadership: Build an effective operating model for community collaboration that accomplishes our shared vision and goals.• FY 2016 Goal: Build and maintain an effective

community partnership that creates and maintains an education-to-career system for Durham youth and young adults.

Data for Decision-making: Track young people and their education-to-career path to enable strategic action, chart our progress and measure success.• FY 2016 Goal: Develop and maintain a common set of

measures that will guide decision-making and chart progress toward success.

Career Pathways: Facilitate the construction of a sequence of courses and associated supports that lead to credentials valued in the local labor market. • FY 2016 Goal: Develop certified regional career pathways

for students to enter high-growth regional industries.

Employer Engagement: Engage employers deeply in developing an education-to-career system that establishes a robust talent pipeline to meet their labor needs.• FY 2016 Goal: Engage Triangle employers in developing

career pathways and work-based learning opportunities for Durham youth.

Youth Engagement: Ensure youth and young adults in

Advisory Team

Esther Coleman, City of Durham Office of Economic & Workforce DevelopmentDrew Cummings, Durham CountyArnold Dennis, Juvenile Justice InstituteKevin Dick, City of Durham Office of Economic & Workforce DevelopmentGayle Erdheim, Achievement Academy of DurhamTom Jaynes, Durham Technical Community CollegeAnn Oshel, Alliance Behavioral HealthcareJenni Owen, Duke University Center for Child & Family Policy Gudrun Parmer, Durham County Criminal Justice Resource CenterDavid Reese, East Durham Children’s InitiativePilar Rocha-Goldberg, El Centro HispanoRick Sheldahl, Durham Public SchoolsPamela Thorpe Young, N.C. Central UniversityJohn White, Greater Durham Chamber of CommerceStacey Wilson-Norman, Durham Public Schools

Durham inform and fully participate in creating and evaluating our education-to-career system.• FY 2016 Goal: Engage and empower a network of Durham youth who inform and participate in building

Durham’s education-to-work system.

Opportunity Youth: Develop a clear sequence of steps by which young people who are behind or disconnected from school or work can complete high school and postsecondary education and secure living-wage work.• FY 2016 Goal: Increase the rates at which opportunity youth complete high school and postsecondary

education and secure living-wage employment.

Action Plan Partners

City of Durham Office of Economic & Workforce Development (OWED)Durham Public Schools (DPS)Durham Technical Community College (DTCC)East Durham Children’s Initiative (EDCI)N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development (Institute)

Creating an Education-to-Career System | 7

Who Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Strategic Leadership

1. Define and implement an effective partnership model. 2. Develop goals, strategies, action plans and process for tracking and

reporting on outcomes. 3. Create a nonprofit anchor institution and staff with sustainability and

communications plans to sustain the Made in Durham partnership. 4. Develop a public policy agenda to support the partnership’s goals and strategies. 5. Convene partners and community stakeholders to inform Made in

Durham strategies, set baselines, attract new partners and build momentum for outcomes).

Data for Decision-Making 1. Identify specific metrics to measure Made in Durham success. 2. Identify sources of data and collect baselines for metrics. 3. Develop and publicize Metrics Dashboard that charts progress toward measures 4. Develop priority disaggregations of data measures for primary barriers to success. 5. Monitor emerging industry clusters to align career pathways with

jobs-producing industries. Career Pathways 1. Develop a certified pathway in health and life sciences. 2. Support certification of information technology and advanced

manufacturing regional pathways.3. Develop a structure for regional oversight and coordination of pathway

certification efforts. 4. Develop a regional pathway action plan.

Employer Engagement 1. Survey Triangle businesses to identify current work-based learning

opportunities for Durham youth.2. Convene nonprofit and education partners to share opportunities,

coordinate employer engagement efforts and develop shared outcomes/assessment strategies.

3. Pilot software platforms for connecting employers and educators to offer WBL opportunities to Durham youth.

4. Develop a web-based clearing house for youth events, programs and possibly internships.

5. Develop a platform for coordinating employer engagement across institutions. 6. Form an Employer Engagement Action Team to develop and lead an

employer engagement strategy. Youth Engagement 1. Recruit a diverse group of engaged youth to participate in developing,

implementing and evaluating Made in Durham strategy. 2. Train youth representatives in the skills and competencies necessary

for complex analysis of community issues. 3. Develop youth network research projects that inform Made in Durham strategies. 4. Create and integrate an authentic youth-adult partnership for Made in Durham.

Opportunity Youth 1. Pilot a support system for 250 opportunity youth who attend 3

alternative education programs. 2. Conduct research and analysis to create a reengagement strategy for

disconnected youth. 3. Develop opportunity youth policy priorities for Made in Durham’s policy agenda.

Advisory Team =Staff = Board/Staff = = Adv Team/Staff =Staff = = = =

Data Team = = Data Team = = = Staff = =Data Team = = Data Team = = = =

HLS Pathway Team = = = Staff = = =

Regional Pathway = = = Team Regional Pathway = = Team

Staff/Partners Staff/Partners =

Staff, DPS, = = = Employers Durham County, = = Staff DPS, OEWD, Staff = Staff/Partners =

Staff =

Staff = = = =

Youth Network/Staff = = = = Youth Network/Staff = = = Staff/DPS/ = = = = DTCC/Institute Staff = =

Staff =

Goal: Build and maintain an effective community partnership to create an education-to-career system for Durham.

Goal: Develop and maintain a common set of measures that will guide decision-making and chart progress toward success.

Goal: Engage Triangle employers in developing career pathways and work-based learning opportunities for Durham youth.

Goal: Engage and empower a Durham youth network that informs and participates in building the education-to-work system.

Goal: Increase the rates at which opportunity youth complete high school, postsecondary education and secure living-wage employment.

Goal: Develop certified regional career pathways for students to enter high-growth regional industries.

Fiscal Year 2016 Strategy/Action Steps

8 | Made in Durham FY 2016 Action Plan

MADE IN DURHAMP r e p a r i n g O u r Yo u t h f o r C a r e e r s“The education and career system we envision cannot be

achieved by one sector or institution alone. Its success will depend on our public and elected officials, our business executives, our faith and community leaders, and our program operators and grassroots activists working together with determination, creativity, and courage. It will require strategic investments of resources—funds, people, expertise—from the public, private, and philanthropic sectors. And it will require the active leadership of our youth and young adults in shaping the programs and services that will, in turn, shape their own futures.

Throughout this initiative, we have sensed a strong appetite for change—a sense that this is a special moment in time, and that Durham must act now before we place another generation of our young people at risk.”

Made in Durham: Building an Education-to-Career SystemOctober 2012

MADE IN DURHAMP r e p a r i n g O u r Yo u t h f o r C a r e e r s

Made in Durham is a community partnership of educators, business, government, nonprofits, youth and young adults mobilized around a shared vision

that all of Durham’s youth will complete high school and a postsecondary credential and begin a

rewarding career by the age of 25.

359 Blackwell St., Suite 200, Durham, NC 27701919.627.6420 | info@madeindurham.org

www.madeindurham.org

InvestorsMade in Durham’s work to date has been made possible by generous grants from these forward-thinking organizations as well as individual donors.

A.J. Fletcher FoundationBiogen Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North CarolinaCapitol Broadcasting CompanyCharles M. and Mary D. Grant FoundationCity of DurhamDuke University Hospital SystemDurham CountyDurham Public SchoolsDurham Technical Community College

Fund for Southern CommunitiesGlaxoSmithKlineGolden LEAF FoundationLumina Foundation MDCStewards FundThe Warner FoundationUnited Way of the Greater TriangleWells Fargo

Staff Contacts

Meredythe Holmes, Executive Director919.627.6419 | mholmes@madeindurham.org

Joshua Mbanusi, Youth Engagement Strategist919.381.5820 | jmbanusi@mdcinc.org

Britney McCoy, Partnership Relations Strategist919.627.6420 | bmccoy@madeindurham.org

Lydia Newman, Youth Transitions Strategist 919.627.6421 | lnewman@madeindurham.org

Laura Wendell, Business Engagement Strategist919.627.6423 | lwendell@madeindurham.org