The Opportunity Youth Partnership in Santa Clara County leverages collective impact to put disconnected youth on the path to self-sufficiency. More than 15,000 young people (ages 16–24) in Santa Clara County are neither working nor in school. The Opportunity Youth Partnership (OYP) — a collective impact initiative that brings together community-based organizations, public agencies, school districts, community colleges, funders, employers, and civic organizations — works to advance a Comprehensive Second Chance System to move these youth to “durable self-sufficiency, which is achieved through connections to education and employment.” With a priority focus on youth who have experienced homelessness, the foster system, and/or the justice system, OYP aims to create education-to-career pathways and cut the number of disconnected youth in Santa Clara County in half by 2025. Since 2014, the partnership has tracked results for 3,000 youth in the county. Learn more.

Photo: chuttersnap/Unsplash