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Banister's Leadership Academy
4913 Dodge Street Omaha, NE 68132
PO Box 4002 Omaha, NE 68104
www.banistersacademy.org
Banister’s Leadership Academy
Akile Banister
Chief Executive Officer
ab@banistersacademy.org
+1 (402) 571-4293
No
The Recruitment Specialist, Program Team Lead, Program Specialist, and Support Specialist work directly with the youth and families we serve. Assure high-quality program services and support for youth and their families. Maintain sufficient levels of communication and positive relationships to ensure a cooperative and productive work environment and to avoid performance and other program-related issues—Monitor youth academic progression, grades, attendance, tardiness, and reduction of behavioral suspensions. Staff case manage the employment program participants.
Banister’s Leadership Academy has facilitated the Y2M Employment Program in Omaha and Grand Island over the last three years. The Y2M Employment Program in Omaha has been held during the summer at King Solomon Church rental space until recently being moved to the Hope Center. Participants have received work experience leading to permanent employment, exposure to business professionals, paid stipends for work and supplemental programming support.
Y2M Employment Program
2577500.0
100000.0
Service/program
Y2M is an experiential learning program that provides youth and young adults employment opportunities, personal and leadership development. Y2M is designed on the evidenced based model: Career Launch Take Control which was developed by the national Boys & Girls Club of America. Participants age 14-24, provide peer led programming, gain work experience (that leads to permanent employment) and receive a weekly stipend. Y2M provides impactful engagement during high-risk evening/weekend hours to youth and young adults. Y2M activities build leadership and employment skills. Once a week, community leaders from diverse cultural and occupational backgrounds speak to participants and answer questions about their occupation and career pathway. Participants attend two outings during which they can demonstrate the values that learned over the course of the program. The geographic program area includes zip codes; 68104, 68111, and 68110 which have some of the highest unemployment and crime in the city. • Like in Banisters Leadership Academy’s Family Navigator program, mentees who participate in Y2M will participate in activities designed to build leadership and team working skills. At least once a week, community leaders from diverse cultural and occupational backgrounds will speak and answer questions about their occupation, their values, and tell the mentees how they got to where they are. Participants will receive a meal each day the program runs and students who attend every session in a week will receive a stipend at the end of that week. • According a 2019 report from the US Census Bureau, an estimated 14.7 percent of Omaha Metro Area teens ages 16 – 19 who were seeking employment were unable to find it. That is over seven thousand teens who want to work but have been unable to find a suitable job. • Fewer young people are seeking or finding jobs and summer programs for teens are few and many are already at capacity. Step-Up alone rejected over six-hundred applications from teens seeking to participate. Many young people will have unoccupied time during which they may get into trouble. The Y2M project will give those youth something constructive to do during those free hours.
The Y2M Employment Program starts in June every year and the employment cohort works throughout the year with their assigned employer. The participant age range is 15-24. High school participants work 20 hours per week during the summer and participate in reduced program hours during their school year. The students transition through 3 phases of the program; paid summer work experience years 1-2, paid internships 3, and permanent employment with company partners. Young adults work 20 hours per week in the summer and increase their hours to 30 hours a week after passing the initial 3-month probationary period. Their employer then gradually increases their hours to full time status. The participants receive case management assistance from staff and are set on a track for full-time employment or entrepreneur ventures.
0.85
Long-Lasting Economic Growth (i.e., a proposal that will foster gainful employment opportunities and financial investment in the area, leading to the creation of generational wealth and widespread economic vitality in North and South Omaha)
Other Sustainable Community (i.e., create or enhance housing, services, education, civic uses, recreation, etc.)
Career pathways and entreprenership for participants.
The Y2M Employment Program specifically addresses lack of jobs/unemployment and channeling life trajectories of youth and young adults in North Omaha. The work experience and subsequent employment provides opportunities to sustainable career pathways. Banister’s programs address Out-of-School-Time issues with unsupervised youth engaging in deviant behavior and disproportionate minority contact with BIPOC students being overwhelmingly represented in the juvenile justice system. There’s a need for family and youth support services in Douglas County. Some factors include social isolation and exposure to traumatic events at the individual level; frequent conflict, parental substance-abuse, and child maltreatment at the family level; and violent and distressed or resource-deprived neighborhoods at the community levels. Additional factors; highest reported crime rates for juveniles; highest unemployment rates; and the most economically disadvantaged families compared to the city. Douglas County statistics identified the following community challenges; African-American arrest for youth was 2,087 total, equating to 22.1%. The Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement reported the following disproportionate minority contact statistics for African American as the following; 35.9% are in youth detention, 28.1% are tried in adult court. The disparities increase in regards to gender of those same youth. African-American males comit felonies at 82.9% compared to 14.8% for females, with misdemeanors at 67.3% for males and 30.6% for females. Y2M is an experiential learning program that provides youth employment opportunities, personal and leadership development. Y2M is designed on the evidenced based model: Career Launch Take Control which was developed by the national Boys & Girls Club of America. Participants gain work experience and receive a weekly stipend. That transitions into permanent employment and career pathways. This is an experiential learning employment program that removes the barriers marginalized young people experience due to lack of opportunities and nepotism that permeates local work spaces.
The program aligns with the vision to address the issue of lack of jobs/employment and increasing local businesses. North Omaha has been neglected by the larger city initiatives and Chamber of Commerce business development and employment opportunities. The Y2K program creates employment and entrepreneur opportunities for young adults as well as career pathways. This creates equitable opportunities for marginalized populations to access gainful employment and change their life trajectories. Participants will have increased protective factors and reduced risk. Y2M focuses on developing leadership in youth and helping them to critically think and make informed decisions that impact their lives. The risks and criminogenic factors targeted are as follows: (1) Individual: drug/alcohol use, learning disabilities, anxiety and depression, antisocial attitudes, defiance to authority, lack of concern for others and inapropriate use of time. All of these are addresed in on site programming. (2) Family: lack of supervision, low parental warmth, abusive parents and parental substance abuse. BLA offers parent engagement opportunities and parent support with community referrals to address personal needs of the adults. (3) Education/Community: truancy, low achievement, attachment and literacy, high crime neighborhood and disenfranchised neighborhoods. Programming offers strict academic monitoring and assistance through our partnership with the public schools district. Neighborhood concerns are addressed by offering alternative activities in safe environments. (4) Peers: deviant peer groups are addressed as Y2M builds friendships amongst mentees and encourages a team environment.
The program aligns with the vision to address the issue of lack of jobs/employment and increasing local businesses. North Omaha has been neglected by the larger city initiatives and Chamber of Commerce business development and employment opportunities. The Y2K program creates employment and entrepreneur opportunities for young adults as well as career pathways. This will have positive impact on their families and increase economic growth in the community.
The Y2M Employment Program creates jobs for young adults and a career pathway. The participants will receive wages between $15-22 per hour based on their employer site. The career pipeline transitions from paid work experience to paid internships to permanent employment.
Banister’s will employ 150 youth and young adults between the ages of 15-24 at partner company sites annually.
Not applicable.
The employment wages are $15-22 per hour based on job assignments.
The employment opportunities are for individuals who reside in the following zip codes; 68104, 68111, and 68110 which have some of the highest unemployment and crime in the city.
This will provide economic growth in the community, while creating sustainable jobs for marginalized populations. The permanent jobs will positively impact the participants lives by providing a livable wage. The participants in the entrepreneur track will create businesses in the community and help the neighborhoods and community thrive.
This will impact the quality of life for participants and their families. The long-term employment will impact the local economy and the lives of the participants.
Y2M is designed on the evidenced based model: Career Launch Take Control which was developed by the national Boys & Girls Club of America. The program will include participants from ages 15-24 on 2 career tracks.
Banister’s will measure outputs for the number of jobs participants occupy. The outcomes measured are; Increased academic success by 60% (grades, behavior, engagement, reduction in absenteeism, tardiness and truancy from school). Increase in measurements of hope, motivation, social support, adult relationships and self-efficacy based on a self-report on Hope Scale Assessment. Increased leadership and employment skills for participants by 70%. Program Evaluation: Banister’s utilizes the Goal Setting Formative Questionnaire (Gaumer Erickson & Noonan) and a program evaluation tool designed by an independent researcher, Dr. Richard Weiner, PhD. Dr. Richard Weiner, Ph.D., MLS, Professor of Law and Psychology at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, conducts program evaluation and assessment of BLA's evidence-based models used. Most of the assessment is specifically related to personal development. BLA staff specifically implement program components that build self-esteem, increase self-efficacy by developing leadership and employment skills, providing positive adult mentors to build quality relationships with participants, program activities that help students build social capital and shift to a future-focused mindset.
Dr. Richard Weiner, Ph.D., MLS, Professor of Law and Psychology at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, conducts program evaluation and assessment of BLA's evidence-based models used with his research team.
No
Yes
Omaha Public Schools - Recruitment of participants, Kroc Center -Recruitment of participants, Heartland Workforce Solutions - employment services, BCBS- Ignite program - career services
No
Participants reside in North Omaha and the site locations are; Blackburn or Hope Center. The employment opportunities are for individuals who reside in the following zip codes; 68104, 68111, and 68110 which have some of the highest unemployment and crime in the city.
Within one or more QCTs
Not applicable
No
No
No
No
No
No
Participants int he employment program receive a wage of $15-22 per hour based on an initial 20 work work week, That is increased through each program phase until full time employment has occured.
Funding will be used to cover half the costs of the meployment program. Funds will pay work stipends and employment skills training for participants.The program wil serve 150 participants and have the greatest impact. This will not be possible without the funding.
No
Banister’s will manage the fiscal responsibilities of the funding. We will use funds from other sources to meet the total budget.
Secured: Office of Violence Prevention, Sherwood, Lakin Foundation, Willams and Ruth Scott Foundation, and The Weitz Foundation
Anticipated: Lakin Foundation
Yes,the program would not be able to serve 150 participants and have the greatest impact.
It is scalable and the phases will allow scalability and transitioning of employee costs to the employers.
The ultimate goal is to have the employers assume the costs of full time employment as participants transition to their payroll.
Banister's is committed to this program. The employment opportunities can change the lives of young people in the community and their families. We have secured partial funding for this program. With recent reduction of employment opportunities for young people in North Omaha, this would have significant impact personally and economically for the area.
1.0
1.0
1.0
1.0
Organizational Chart Proposal Budget/Sources and Uses