Current Projects

New Ways is most interested in supporting the development of sustainable systems that leverage local resources and create powerful partnerships among schools, community and the workplace. Goals established in our three-year plan call for sustaining our current work with youth councils, intermediaries, schools and youth-serving organizations, designing and implementing an initiative that will allow us to "go deep" in a small number of communities, and laying the groundwork for a national training and support center for practitioners seeking to develop comprehensive, local youth systems.

Current work includes management and implementation of the following projects.

Communities and Schools for Career Success (California) Established in October of 1999 by the California Department of Education to test the replicability of the successful Massachusetts school improvement model in California. CS2 reshapes the relationships between schools and their communities, improves academic achievement, and connects student learning more directly to the world of work and the broader community. CS2 involves the entire community in developing and carrying out plans to help students progress successfully from middle school through high school as well as making informed choices about post-secondary options.

The Youth Council Institute (California) Established in July 2001 by the California Workforce Investment Board to assist California's 50 Youth Councils in creating comprehensive, local youth-serving systems. YCi is currently working with 80% of California's youth councils and is supported by a two-year contract between CalWIB and New Ways to Work and its partner the California Workforce Association.

The Intermediary Network (National) A national association of leading education and workforce development organizations working locally to ensure student success. New Ways is the facilitating partner for the Network, a self-funded outgrowth of the School-to-Work Intermediary Project. Network members provide powerful and meaningful links between schools, communities and workplace partners. Members also serve as the convener of local collaborations of intermediaries in their own communities.

Quality Work-Based Learning Initiatives (Kansas City and California) Beginning with the New Ways Workers Network in the late 1980's, New Ways has designed systems and developed tools, materials and trainings that help practitioners engage workplace partners and provide high-quality work-based learning experiences for youth. Current work includes the refinement of a package of tools and materials that support Quality WBL, supporting work in local organizations and schools in Northern California, and facilitating the integration of WBL into the curriculum in smaller learning communities of the Kansas City, Kansas High Schools.

Targeted Training and Technical Assistance New Ways also provides targeted technical assistance, training and facilitation support to the California State Youth Council as well as numerous local youth councils and youth-serving organizations, primarily in California. Topics include building local intermediary organizations, strengthening youth councils, increasing youth involvement, creating quality work-based learning systems, conducting community resource mapping, effectively engaging employers, connecting education and workforce programs and a range of strategic planning and program implementation supports.