About Your Application

Organization(s) name(s):

Alliance for Children's Rights

Organization(s) website(s):

www.kids-alliance.org

Organization(s) twitter handle(s):

www.twitter.com/kidalliance

Organization(s) facebook handle(s):

www.facebook.com/kidalliance

Organization(s) instagram handle(s):

https://instagram.com/kidalliance/

Please share the direct link for voters to sign up for your newsletter(s):

www.kids-alliance.org

Describe Your Organization(s)

Non-profit organization

For-profit organization

Government

Other (please specify below):

In one sentence, please describe what your organization does.

:

Since 1992, the Alliance for Children's Rights has protected the rights of L.A. County’s impoverished, neglected, and abused children and foster youth, ages zero to 24. In 2014 we provided free legal and social services to more than 8,000 children.

In one to three sentences, please describe your proposal.

:

In 2013, the Alliance for Children’s Rights and Children’s Law Center sought an engaging way to meaningfully educate and empower every transition-age youth, ages 16-24, or “TAY” in L.A. County. Together they created the Know Before You Go campaign (B4UGO), which features multimodal platforms to help TAY and organization’s serving them in the areas of work, school, life, health, money and more. This campaign was created for foster youth, informed by foster youth. That novel concept alone connects

Where will you be working? Please be specific (e.g. Third Street Middle School; Boyle Heights; LA County).

Central LA

East LA

San Gabriel Valley

San Fernando Valley

South LA

Westside

South Bay

Antelope Valley

County of Los Angeles (countywide)

City of Los Angeles (citywide)

LAUSD

Other (please specify below):

How do you plan to use these resources to make change? (check all that apply)

Conduct research

Engage residents and stakeholders

Implement a pilot or new project

Expand a pilot or program

Mobilize for systems change

Advocate with policymakers and leaders

Implement and track policy

Other (please specify below):

How will your proposal improve the following “Connect” metrics? (check all that apply)

Rates of volunteerism

Voting rates by race

Adults getting sufficient social & emotional support

Median travel time to work

Attendance at cultural events

Number of public transit riders

Participation in neighborhood councils

Percentage of Angelenos that volunteer informally (Dream Metric)

Government responsiveness to residents’ needs (Dream Metric)

Transit-accessible housing and employment (the share of housing units and percentage of jobs that are located near transit)

Total number of local social media friends and connections (Dream Metric)

Attendance at public/open streets gatherings (Dream Metric)

Residential segregation (Dream Metric)

Access to free wifi (Dream Metric)

Describe in greater detail how you will make LA the best place to connect.

:

L.A. County is vast, with many diverse communities within its borders, including our country’s largest population of foster children. Once removed from their parents’ homes, many live with non-family members or in group homes; and they relocate and change schools more than six times. This transiency makes it difficult to learn vital life skills, garner work experience or make a plan for the future. They are isolated, and as they age out, this persists and sets them up for a life of instability.

In 2013, the Alliance for Children’s Rights and Children’s Law Center sought an engaging way to meaningfully educate and empower every transition-age youth, ages 16-24, or “TAY” in L.A. County. Together they created the Know Before You Go campaign (B4UGO), which features multimodal platforms to help TAY and organization’s serving them in the areas of work, school, life, health, money and more. This campaign was created for foster youth, informed by foster youth. That novel concept alone connects TAY, gives them a voice and a lifeline accessible in print or from their phone or computer.

Connection hallmarks of Know Before You Go platforms: (1) Print Toolkit: Foster youth are provided a packet of resources at court by their attorney building a connection with one of their key advocates; (2) B4UGO app: GPS-based mapping and notifications connect TAY with food banks, housing, clinics and more across L.A. County. LA2050 can make a 2.0 version of the app possible with filtered content, zip code searching and account login (based on TAY focus groups); (3) Knowb4ugo.org: The first website created for foster youth in L.A. County is a clearinghouse of information that is necessary to achieve success in life, school and work. LA2050 will connect more TAY to this new resource while increasing features. Soft launch in October 2015; (4) YouTube Channel: This first-of-its-kind web series is a talk show-style hip and entertaining series of videos starring foster youth talking about things like how to get a job, roommates, social media and more. There is nothing like it and it will give TAY a YouTube community, build connections with each other, and a new forum for conversation. The first season is in production and LA2050 can make season two a reality. See attached pilot video. (5) @knowb4ugola: A new Twitter account to bolster all communications for the campaign connecting more TAY to the tools on a platform they use daily.

Please explain how you will evaluate your work.

:

To evaluate the success of expanding Know Before You Go Campaign, we will track these measures:
# hardcopies distributed
# app downloads
# hits on knowb4ugo.org
# YouTube views, subscribers, shares, comments
# Twitter followers @knowb4ugola or prevalence of the use of #knowb4ugo

We will compare the popularity of the different platforms, and we will request monthly feedback from the Young Leaders group that is part of a local collective impact project, the Opportunity Youth Collaborative, to test the usefulness and validity of content and delivery. This information will inform further development of the campaign.

How can the LA2050 community and other stakeholders help your proposal succeed? (check all that apply)

Money (financial capital)

Volunteers/staff (human capital)

Publicity/awareness (social capital)

Infrastructure (building/space/vehicles, etc.)

Education/training

Technical infrastructure (computers, etc.)

Community outreach

Network/relationship support

Quality improvement research

Other (please specify below):

Discussion

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