How are we doing, really? Feedback from the field

Posted Feb 10, 2022, By Mindi Wisman

Today we bring you the first of many updates from our newest project: The Foresight Initiative. We are sharing feedback from experts in the child and youth services field who have taken our survey and described their experiences on managing the challenges of the last two years. We hope you’ll add your voice to the conversation.

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The pandemic has upended the child and youth services sector; essential workers are exhausted, and administrators are struggling to keep programs open, retain their workforce, and support the countless young people who have endured unending trauma. But Youth Catalytics sees this turmoil as a chance to think big, differently, and courageously, and as an opportunity to potentially transform the field. This is the inspiration for our newest project: The Foresight Initiative. We want to know how programs are managing today’s challenges, and how we can come together as a field to do better in the future. So, we’ve been asking people: What adaptations have worked? What practices have lost relevancy? What innovations are you testing or planning to implement? 

One of the Foresight Initiative’s strategic benefits is to share what we learn in real time. Many of you have responded to our survey already, which will remain open, collecting data for the duration of the project. Today, we’re highlighting some of the responses we’ve received from organizations across the country.

“There is a huge opportunity to engage youth in the change needed to create equitable access to resources and supports. As mental health and climate crises increase in intensity, the needs of young people are only growing.” –Iowa 

“We redesigned some of our case management positions into wellness and employment specialists who act as a resource to both clients and staff. With constantly shifting processes and resources, we needed someone to gain expertise.”—California 

“One particular challenge is increasing parental involvement and stability in homes that have been affected by the pandemic either through job loss, death, addiction, or separation.” –Florida 

“We expanded our Prevention and Intervention team to greet youth upstream and to start support while they are on wait lists so that trauma is less severe when they do access housing.”—California 

“We anticipate continued challenges with systemic oppression. We continue to see a burned-out workforce and a lack of a 24-hour crisis response to homelessness. We are also concerned with the overwhelming number of youth who are disconnected from their school(s), a lack of affordable housing, and landlords unwilling to consider renting to youth. We do see a great opportunity with the increase in multi-system funding to address these challenges.” –Ohio   

“We're experiencing the highest vacancies in human services the state has even seen, so there's more need and less staff providing support. The hopelessness for both the youth and the staff are around not having the resources to create the programming that is needed, and to pay the salaries that are needed. Youth work needs to be a career field and not a step on the way to a ‘real job.’ We need to value our youth and their energy and creativity and put our money where our mouth is to prove it.” –Vermont

So what is this telling us so far?  It’s clear from these responses that the trauma suffered by young people, especially over the last two years, is overwhelming. And that our workforce, in its current, weakened state is primed for reinvention. In the urgency of this moment, for all concerned, let’s get to it and help our field move forward.

Please add your voice, your expertise, and your experiences to our Foresight Initiative survey as one step in that direction.