February 20, 2024
Good news!
The Senate Ways and Means Committee has approved the $100,000 Capacity Building Program in their budget. Now, it has moved over to the House Appropriations Committee for final approval.
We need your support to help by telling the House Appropriations Committee how important this is for the youth development field.
TAKE ACTION: Email the House Appropriation members to include the $100,000 Capacity Building program in their budget to support youth development.
We also have an update on our $5 million Youth Grant Program. After review from the House Appropriation Committee, the $5 million Youth Development Grant program was not funded in the proposed House operating budget. This was an upset to our 2024 strategy to support young people in Washington state, but we still have work to do!
February 8, 2024 update
This legislative session, we are asking for budget provisos in both the House and the Senate.
House of Representatives $5,000,000 Youth Development Grant Program
The YDST is asking the House of Representatives to provide critically needed funding for youth development programs and opportunities in the 2024 budget. We are asking for a $5,000,000 budget proviso to allocate funding for youth development programs.
This grant program would be administered through the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and support the creation, expansion, and strengthening of community-based youth development programs that contribute to young people’s health and well-being.
This grant program for the 2024-25 budget year would reach over 60 organizations across the state and impact as many as 20,000 youth from historically marginalized communities, including BIPOC youth, youth experiencing homelessness, refugee and migrant youth, youth with disabilities, and youth in low income and rural communities across the state.
The grant proviso will allow community partners to develop state and local systems in coordination with OSPI and other state agencies that support youth, which in turn will inform the policy bill in 2025, ensuring the policy is informed by practice, lived experience, community need, and community voice.
TAKE ACTION: Email the House Appropriations members to include $5,000,000 in the operating budget for a youth development grant program. TAKE ACTION.
Senate $100,000 Capacity Building Budget Proviso
The YDST is asking the Senate to provide urgently needed supports for youth development programs and opportunities in the 2024 budget. We are requesting $100K for youth development capacity building for youth programs that are struggling to grow or maintain programming for youth this year. This effort would not only help to stabilize impactful supports for youth, but it would also have the benefit of helping us better understand the challenges programs are navigating as they seek to grow, improve, or sustain their programs for youth as we build toward a long term statewide youth development grant program.
The program would provide capacity building supports that include access to professional development workshops and training; 1:1 consultation and coaching supports based on identified needs of applicants, access to professional learning community convenings, including program design, fund development strategies, grant management, operations, and organizational systems to increase their ability to secure and sustain funding.
Supports will be prioritized for organizations serving youth ages 11-19 from historically marginalized communities and whose organizations reflect the communities they serve, and those with annual budgets under $500,000 and/or those facing funding losses and potential loss of impactful programs. Supports will also prioritize geographic equity and access in all regions across the state.
TAKE ACTION: Email the Senate Ways and Means members to include $100,00 for youth development capacity building support. TAKE ACTION.
In 2025, we will be working with the WA State Legislature to write a bill creating a coordinated system for statewide and local organizations providing youth development supports outside of the school day.
To do that well and to address immediate and pressing needs for youth and program providers, we are asking the legislature for a budget proviso to allocate funding for youth development programs in the 2024 budget. This grant program would be administered through the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and support the creation, expansion and strengthening of community-based youth development programs that contribute to young people’s health and well-being.
The proviso will allow community partners to develop state and local systems in coordination with OSPI and other state agencies that support youth, which in turn will inform the policy bill in 2025, ensuring the policy is informed by practice, lived experience, community need, and community voice.
Key Points:
- The grant program and a coordinated statewide system will support statewide and local organizations in their efforts to provide leadership, coordination, technical assistance, professional development, and advocacy to implement high-quality, evidence-based, youth-centered, coordinated approaches throughout the state.
- Direct funding to youth development providers will allow for the creation, expansion, and quality improvement of community-based supports that ultimately support youth’s academic and non-academic success.
- This grant program and future policy supports a vision of public education where educators focus on education and students focus on learning. Auxiliary supports give students and families access to the resources they need so that teaching and learning can occur unimpeded.
- A statewide coordinated approach will allow for:
- the state to see gaps in opportunities and service delivery targeted resources to the areas and youth who need them most;
- data collection, analysis, and outcomes monitoring in a meaningful way, focusing on both academic and nonacademic measures;
- an increased public awareness of the evidence showing that academic outcomes are a result of both academic and nonacademic factors;
- capacity building for community organizations.
- Having these funds flow through OSPI, will allow for dual capacity building across schools and local partners to support SD needs assessments, community partnerships, coordination of supports, integration within (and outside of) the school, and a data-driven approach.
Funding for direct-service youth development programs
Youth development programs have consistently provided a space for children and youth to learn and grow outside of the classroom. Challenges in academics and social-emotional learning continue for our state’s young people, and many youth development programs are unable to increase program capacity due to limited funding.
A significant investment in youth development programs would provide more of Washington’s young people access to life-changing programs.