Public/Private Ventures (P/PV)

Legacy Collection

Innovation. Research. Action.

After almost 35 years Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) has ceased operations. The organization leaves behind an incredible legacy of knowledge, including hundreds of research reports, case studies and evaluations about how best to improve programs and outcomes for children, youth and families. We are fortunate that P/PV has decided to archive its publications collection with the Foundation Center's IssueLab so that practitioners can benefit from this knowledge for years to come.

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Moving Beyond the Walls: Faith and Justice Partnerships Working for High-Risk Youth

January 13, 2003

This report examines the development of partnerships among faith-based institutions and juvenile justice agencies in a national demonstration intended to provide mentoring, education and employment services to young people at high risk of future criminal behavior. Given the range of servicesand the needs of the young peoplecollaborations are critical to the communities' efforts. The report addresses the following questions: Can small faith-based organizations work together effectively? Can they develop effective partnerships with juvenile justice institutions? What are the benefits and challenges of both types of partnerships?

Increasing Opportunities for Older Youth in After-School Programs

January 1, 2003

Few after-school programs have developed strategies for attracting large numbers of teens, especially older and harder-to-serve youth. In response to this need, Madison Square Boys & Girls Club in New York City and Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston participated in a three-year initiative to enhance services to underserved teens. This report documents the successes and challenges the Clubs experienced as the initiative unfolded. They recruited large numbers of teens, involved them in a variety of activities, and provided them with emotional support, leadership opportunities, and programming in two critical areas: academics and job training.

Community Change for Youth Development: Ten Lessons from the CCYD Initiative

December 1, 2002

From 1995 through 2002, P/PV worked with six neighborhoods around the country to develop and institute a framework of "core concepts" to guide youth programming for the nonschool hours. The goal was to create programming that would involve a high proportion of each neighborhood's several thousand adolescents. This report summarizes the basic lessons that emerged from this Community Change for Youth Development (CCYD) initiative. The lessons address such topics as the usefulness of a "core concepts" approach; the dos and don'ts of involving neighborhood residents in change initiatives; the role of research; the role of youth; and the capacity of neighborhood-wide approaches to attract high-risk youth.

Faith and Action: Implementation of the National Faith-Based Initiative for High Risk Youth

July 30, 2002

Public/ Private Ventures' long-standing interest in whether faith-based institutions could serve as vehicles for the delivery of social programming for youth who have committed juvenile or criminal offenses led to the development of the National Faith-Based Initiative for High-Risk Youth. Faith and Action documents the efforts of the 15 faith-based organizations that participated in this initiative. These organizations entered into partnership with the justice community in order to recruit high-risk youth and provide them with services such as education, employment and mentoring. The report also documents the role that faith plays in the delivery of these services, and makes observations about the capacity of these organizations to implement programs for youth.

Community Change for Youth Development in Kansas City

October 30, 2001

Kansas City, Missouri, is one of six sites in Community Change for Youth Development (CCYD), a national demonstration project aiming to increase basic supports and opportunities available to youth aged 12-20. The lead agency is the YMCA of Greater Kansas City; because of its considerable organizational capacity and relationship with funders, the YMCA was successful in operating and expanding CCYD. This report focuses on the benefits of working with the YMCA of Greater Kansas City and the challenges faced by the organization in leading a community-based initiative in three urban neighborhoods.

Faith-Based Institutions and High-Risk Youth

March 26, 2000

Many of the highest-risk youth in poor communities are not reached by traditional youth programs, but are served by churches and other faith-based institutions that are both well-established and seriously concerned about the welfare of these vulnerable youth and their families. This report, the first in a series from P/PV's National Faith-Based Initiative for High-Risk Youth, provides an initial overview of strategies employed by faith-based institutions in 11 cities, including lessons learned about the distinct contributions of faith-based institutions to the work of civil society, and the challenges of building partnerships between faith-based groups and other institutions -- law enforcement and juvenile justice agencies, foundations and philanthropy, local government and community organizations.

Resident Involvement in Community Change: The Experiences of Two Initiatives

June 12, 1999

The 1990s saw a resurgence of interest in community development initiatives targeting poor and disadvantaged communities. That resurgence involves at least one major assumption: that involving residents -- both adults and youth -- creates community ownership and increases grassroots participation in ways that will ultimately lead to stronger, more sustainable initiatives. This report examines the development of resident involvement strategies in eight sites participating in P/PV's Community Change for Youth Development (CCYD) initiative and Plain Talk, The Annie E. Casey Foundation's initiative to prevent teen pregnancy (which P/PV evaluated). The authors identify three stages of resident involvement observed across all eight sites; document the ways in which residents contributed to the local site activities; and discuss the challenges of resident governance strategies.

Support for Youth: A Profile of Three Communities (a Community Change for Youth Development [CCYD] report)

March 15, 1998

Over the past decade, increasing attention has been given to nonschool hours as a vehicle for providing some of the basic supports -- caring adult attention and guidance, career development, and opportunities to engage in positive learning and enrichment activities -- that encourage positive youth development. This report examines the assumptions that youth with higher levels of support are more successful in school, work and their communities, and that youth in moderately poor urban communities lack adequate supports. Community-wide surveys completed in 1996 in three communities -- Austin, Savannah, and St. Petersburg (Florida) -- found a discouraging decline in supports and opportunities as youth get older. From 15 to 25 percent of youth 18 years and older were not engaged in any positive structured activities, had very few adults in their lives, and were not working.

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