Question

Can intensive, individually tailored services or mentoring help young people graduate high school and become productive adults?

Why are we asking?
Every day, 7,000 students drop out of school. Among Latino and African-American boys, the dropout rate is nearly 50 percent. Young people with histories of foster care or juvenile justice custody do especially poorly. But individual attention provided by a caring adult might help keep the most vulnerable young people on track to high school graduation and careers.

Working Toward a Solution

MDRC in the News

The Simple Way One Tennessee Program Turns Foster Kids into Higher-Earning Adults

For American kids raised in foster care, one stumble can derail adulthood, said Erin Valentine, a sociologist at MDRC who studies adult outcomes for such youth. National data shows they face much tougher odds than their peers in the general population.

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Report

Case Management for Students at Risk of Dropping Out

Services to help students stay in school are often fragmented. In this program, school-based coordinators identify students at risk, work with them to assess their needs, connect them with school and community supports, and monitor their progress. Case-managed students received more services than others, but early impact findings are inconclusive.

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Report

The Role of Risk

This report, a Public/Private Ventures project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, presents results from the nation’s first large-scale study to examine how the levels and sources of risk youth face may influence their mentoring relationships and the benefits they derive from participating in mentoring programs.

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