Resource Mapping to Help Identify Opportunity Youth in Detroit

Oct 1, 2018 | Stephanie Quesnelle

Last month, we posted a blog exploring one of our newest projects which is focused on building a concrete measurement of Opportunity Youth (OY). As a reminder, OY are typically defined as young adults 16-24 years old who are neither working nor enrolled in school or a vocational training program. OY are one of the most challenging demographics to identify with any level of detail. Over the last three months, D3 has been engaging with practitioners and researchers who work with OY to better understand the landscape of organizations that serve them. With their help, we started a list with the goal of identifying the wide ranging diversity of organizations that work with OY at different points of service.  The identified programs range from after school tutoring to housing assistance to mental health.  We also wanted to create a resource that would help organizations navigate this complicated landscape We used this list to create a resource map to illustrate how these different programs and organizations are connected to each other. To organize the different organizations for the landscape analysis in a way that would make sense to users and help inform the second stage of the research project, we created the following categories to identify an organization’s work:

  • Human Services
  • General Workforce Development
  • Place-Based Services
  • Internet/Technology Access
  • Afterschool and Summer Programs
  • K-12 Education Programs
  • Adult Education Services
  • Equitable Justice Organizations
  • Faith-Based Services
  • Mental and Physical Health
These categories are color coded to make the map easier to navigate. Each organization may appear in multiple categories, depending on their work. D3 made an initial effort to classify organizations based on their advertised areas of work.  We expect to make updates as we receive community comments and contributions. You can explore the live map here. The search bar in the upper left corner will quickly take you to a specific organization and show the categories that organization has been assigned to.  By clicking on a circle that represents an organization, you can also see all the categories we assigned the organization or program to, as well as their contact information. We hope that this tool can serve as a community resource by featuring the array of services available to OY.  Users will be able to find services within specific categories, such as education or mental health, by navigating through the tool.  The map also provides a higher-level overview of the ecosystem of OY resources, allowing users to see where there are gaps in services. If you know of a Detroit organization serving OY that is missing from our map, please fill out this form to help us connect OY to even more resources.