CES developed its Future Ready approach to support youth success towards achieving their goals. This guide weaves together a set of expectations and practices that support a personalized approach to Future Ready education and career development programming for youth placed in DYS settings.
means having the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to complete whatever education and training you need to achieve your goals in school, work, and life.
Our personalized approach to Future Ready education and career development is defined as a learning process between students, educators, and other caring adults in which students are helped to assess their strengths and aspirations, plan for and make demonstrated progress toward their own purposes, and work cooperatively with others to accomplish challenging tasks.
Being Future Ready means having the knowledge, skills and attitudes to complete whatever education and training you need to achieve your goals in school, work and life. To support youth placed in DYS settings in becoming Future Ready, we have created this guide to define the key activities across the continuum which promote youth success.
Our success in realizing a personalized approach to future readiness for all youth served by DYS and its partners is in all of our hands and we look forward to working with you on accomplishing this mission.
The central goal of our personalized approach to education for students is to make progress towards demonstrating the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are necessary to successfully complete, credit-bearing college courses, seek and obtain employment, and/or participate in certificate or workplace training programs and ultimately enter economically viable careers. In order to meet this goal, DYS has developed and will continue to add Future Ready experiences to expose youth to future education and career options and provide opportunities for skill development and mastery over time. These experiences complement and enrich the acquisition of academic Common Core competencies.
All Future Ready experiences involve the intentional development of 21st century workplace competencies as a component of participation in school-based courses, instruction, projects, specialized programming, and special events. For example, to the degree possible, Future Ready experiences may involve student participation in college classes, with industry or community-based employers, and/or specialized residential programming. Competencies youth may develop include:
Demonstrating understanding or proficiency in Future Ready competencies, including:
Advocacy
Career and education exploration and action planning
Financial literacy
Life skills
Postsecondary and workplace skills
Articulating the type of postsecondary training required in various career fields
Articulating how personal skills and interests relate to various career fields
Articulating/demonstrating accepted workplace norms such as attendance, dress, professional etiquette
Demonstrating oral and written communication appropriate to the workplace
Developing occupation specific skills
Completing industry recognized certifications
Completing postsecondary coursework
Within DYS, there already exists a menu of Future Ready experiences throughout the DYS continuum of care. Examples include the Empower Your Future curriculum, college and career fairs, small-engine repair, culinary programming, silk-screen design and printing, horticulture classes, face-to-face and online college classes, artist residencies focused on fashion design or audio engineering, as well as engaging classroom instruction that explicitly makes learning relevant to learners. DYS will be significantly expanding career development opportunities beginning in July 2022 and we will seek to leverage these opportunities as part of our programming design.
As Future Ready experiences are expanded for DYS youth, the following must be considered:
Future Ready experiences must be driven by measurable youth outcomes rather than by participation in activities [How are youth different as a result of participation in Future Ready experiences?]
Future Ready experiences should be made accessible to ALL youth
Future Ready experiences should be integrated into a youth’s program of study and connected to classroom learning rather than being a separate program or activity
In recognition that Future Ready experiences will vary based on program type, resources, youth interests and goals, and length of stay, we have adopted the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s language around career development stages [Awareness, Exploration, Immersion; see below] to articulate a menu of Future Ready experiences for youth involved with DYS.
AWARENESS
Youth build awareness of the variety of postsecondary options and careers available and begin identifying areas of personal interest
EXPLORATION
Youth explore postsecondary and career options to provide motivation and inform decision-making.
IMMERSION
Preparation: Youth apply learning through practical experiences and develop transferable 21st century workplace and academic skills
Education and Training: Youth learn about and train for employment in a specific occupation
