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- EIN 93-1222073
- 408-347-5955
- Box 578 San Jose CA 95106 USA
- ccpy.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Adult & Child Matching Programs, Children & Youth, Christianity, Religion, Scouting, Youth Development Programs
Mission: California- Community Partners for Youth creates community partnerships providing high-risk and under-performing youth with the skills and support needed to discover and achieve their potential without limits. In the State of California, the high school dropout rate is 11%. In Santa Clara County the dropout rate is 8%. At Yerba Buena High School (YB) the overall dropout rate is 35%. One of the major challenges we face is that our average 9th grader starts high school with only a 3rd grade reading level, which pushes them farther behind in their classes. Without effective intervention, these at-risk youth often become frustrated with school and turn their back on education, which is in many ways their only hope for lifting themselves out of their current situation. Rather than investing their time in school, these youth, who feel they have no place else to go and feel they are not valued by adults, end up involved with gangs, drugs and crime. Through working with them, we find that many have trouble admitting their poor reading capabilities and wind up struggling through school and in personal relationships. In addition, there is often not enough encouragement at home, and there is often a strong influence to be involved in drugs and gangs through peer pressure or from parents to work and help support the family. We also believe more broadly, one of the greatest obstacles to social change is resignation about the future. CCPY provides the entire community an innovative opportunity to experience that the seemingly impossible cycle of poverty, crime, drugs, lack of education and hopelessness can be addressed, and turned around and that all of this is indeed economically scalable. Intervention and mentoring based on personal responsibility succeeds in bringing sustainable results because it addresses difficulties youth experience as a community issue. Research shows that most youth-related crimes occur between 3pm and 6pm. CCPY has a youth center located directly on the high school campus with staff available after school and during lunch period to provide a safe environment in which CCPY youth can thrive and realize their own potential. While daily attendance is not required, CCPY holds a series of activities after school, thereby creating an avenue and a network to help them make better, more beneficial choices. The Department of Justice and the Center for the Study of Social Policy reports dropouts are twice as likely to be unemployed than high school graduates. They typically earn an estimated $600,000 less over their working years (20-65). High School dropouts also make up nearly half of the total prison population and half of the heads of households on welfare. It costs over $71,000 annually to incarcerate juveniles. In contrast, the CCPY program offers intervention, with a proven track record of success, which costs less than $5,000 per young adult. Without effective intervention, troubled youth in these local schools face a lifetime of limited opportunity, or even worse, may drift into a lifetime of crime. CCPY strives to break the inevitable cycle of poverty, crime, drugs, lack of education and hopelessness through intervention and mentoring, while instilling the value that success is based on personal responsibility. The future well being of local and state communities depends upon the commitment and investment in youth we make today. To contrast all of these worrisome figures, CCPY’s Step Up program has a success rate over the past four years of having at least 90% of these challenged youth stay in school.
Geographic areas served: South Bay
Programs: The CCPY program allows our community to proactively invest in our youth, by helping them to discover an inspiring future for themselves, to see the value of staying in school, and to become more employable and self-reliant. This is intended to replace the need to subsidize them through county/state social service and correctional institutions, which are often the inevitable results for communities that don't succeed in supporting and empowering youth. Our program in the San Jose area is based on our more then two decades of successful youth mentoring experience. The CCPY curriculum was developed and field tested through Global Partners for Youth (GPY) and is being implemented successfully by non-profit mentor organizations in cities in the United States and around the world. GPY and their affiliate agencies have played an active role in helping thousands of youth become productive adults and responsible members of their communities. CCPY youth are often unhappy with their current circumstances, feel like they want and need to make a change, but lack the insight or the guidance to do so. These youth have been identified by education professionals as being 'at-risk', which means they have a much greater than average likelihood of dropping out of high school. What's more, the youth with whom CCPY engages are at an age when they are statistically more likely to decide to leave school. According to studies, more than half of youths who leave high-school do so in tenth grade. CCPY approaches already at-risk youth at this at-risk age and works with them to make the choices that will keep them engaged in school and in their futures. CCPY reaches out to those who would benefit most, but makes it clear that only those who truly seek change can actually succeed at making a change. Therefore, after considering their current reality in CCPY's Choosing to Step-Up to Brighter Futures process, the first step youth take in entering the program is recognizing that they want to change. Step-Up, a year-long community mentoring program, connects high-risk youth with personal accountability, inspiring vision for their lives and the understanding they have the ability to make new life choices, regardless of their current life circumstances. We recruit forty-five additional high-risk teens each year who want the ability to pursue new life choices. CCPY creates a safe community-based environment where, through weekly activities, youth begin to make their own choices, discover their own visions, and recognize that they are accountable for their actions and decisions. By placing the accountability in their hands, they begin to gain control over their own futures. In the Step Up program (1st year), each student is required to set three goals important to them, which take one year to accomplish. Our mentors, staff, and other volunteers, provide the students with at least 25 monthly hours of positive adult contact during after school and weekend sessions at YB and during educational and recreational outings in the area. Among the activities included in this life-skill training are: goal-setting skills, learning how to stay focused on their goals, problem-solving skills, helping them tackle their challenges, discussing their progress as well as their set-backs, and also dealing with changing circumstances and new obstacles. CCPY also includes parents and guardians in monthly activities, so that they may provide a stronger support system and be actively involved in their child's transformations and accomplishments. Each youth is assigned to a mentor who works with them directly on a weekly basis. The youth also find a support system within themselves, other youth in the Step Up program, and youth in the Step Ahead (year 2) and Step Beyond (year 3)Programs.
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