Initiatives for children and youth often fail to show the “big picture.” How are initiatives at the early childhood level related to middle school programs? What are the right intersections for collaboration, since children being healthy and connected is important in its own right, yet also affects school success while falling outside of the purview of traditional “education”?

In 2003, members of the “founding group” for the Ready by 21 Coalition adopted the “Dashboards for Youth” continuum framework developed by the Forum for Youth Investment, a national nonprofit youth policy organization headquartered in Washington, DC.

The “Dashboard” is a tool to show our community’s aspirations for youth outcomes across the continuum of youth development - what we want our young people to be able to do or experience as they progress from early childhood to young adulthood. Outcomes on this Dashboard represent our hopes for each individual young person and for all young people in our community, including special populations of children and youth who face additional challenges and barriers.

Please note that the outcomes on the framework are all about children and youth, not about services and supports. The framework is envisioned as a set of community outcomes. It will take families, schools, service organizations and their programs, leaders, community members, and of course, the youth themselves to make a difference. By working together toward common goals, we hope to make efforts more systemic and yield better results.

Download our databook on Priority Outcomes and Indicators for Children and Youth.  Page 6-7 list the agreed-upon outcomes and indicators.