New research findings show connections between youth national service and workforce readiness
10 July 2024 - 3:00PM
City Year and Cornell University, with support from Einhorn
Collaborative, have released the findings of a study that provide
new evidence of the importance of national service to young people
and how service supports workforce development and promotes engaged
citizenship.
The City Year Alumni Bridging Study draws from survey responses
from over 2,000 City Year AmeriCorps alumni who served as student
success coaches and mentors in systemically under-resourced schools
across the U.S. between 2012-2022. The study, conducted by Cornell
University’s Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research and
David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, also included
one-on-one interviews with a subset of survey
respondents.
A major theme emerging from the study is that an AmeriCorps
experience can prepare young people with many of the essential
skills that are most in demand by employers today and in the next
five years, as identified in the 2023 Future of Jobs report by the
World Economic Forum. These core skills include creative thinking,
empathy, resilience and leadership, among others.
City Year alumni also reported their experience helped them to
work across lines of difference, enabling them to navigate working
effectively and collaboratively with diverse teams in the
workplace.
“Understanding and embracing difference is critical to
professional and personal success, at work and in life, so we are
encouraged to see that service is contributing positively to corps
members’ growth and development in this area,” said Jessica Proett,
City Year’s senior director of external evaluation. “The skills
that corps members gain are also being nurtured in the students
they serve, opening their eyes to the value of community and how
public service can change lives.”
Other notable findings relate to the impact of national service,
with alumni saying that they felt more prepared to continue with
their commitment to community engagement,
Read an overview of the key findings of the Alumni Bridging
Study:
https://www.cityyear.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cornell_Study_Overview_City_Year_01.17.24.pdf
About City Year
City Year is a trailblazing, youth-powered organization with a
dual mission: expanding educational equity for students furthest
from opportunity and developing diverse leaders through national
service. Research shows the more time a student spends with a City
Year AmeriCorps member serving as a student success coach, the
better the student outcomes—academically, socially, and
emotionally. A public-private partnership, City Year is a proud
member of AmeriCorps, operating in 29 U.S. cities with
international affiliates in the U.K. and South Africa. Today,
42,000 alums continue to lead and serve where they live and work.
Learn more about City Year’s six areas of impact: www.cityyear.org,
Facebook, X and LinkedIn.
About Cornell University’s David M. Einhorn Center for
Community Engagement
The Einhorn Center’s mission is to be the hub of community
engagement at Cornell, supporting a university culture where
students, faculty, staff and partners work together to create a
better world. Through these partnerships, communities see positive
change on issues that matter most to them; faculty infuse their
teaching and research with diverse perspectives and ways of
knowing; and students develop the skills, insight and humility
they’ll use as lifelong learners and leaders with a public
purpose.
About the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational
Research
The mission of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational
Research is to expand, strengthen and speed the connections between
cutting-edge research and the design, evaluation and implementation
of policies and practices that enhance human development, health
and well-being. The Bronfenbrenner Center fosters research to
understand and discover solutions to human problems across multiple
levels of analysis (individual, interpersonal, community,
organizational, governmental), as well as to identify, evaluate and
disseminate evidence-based and cost-efficient practices and
programs.
About Einhorn Collaborative
Einhorn Collaborative is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to
fostering social connection and cohesion in the U.S. We work with
community leaders, researchers, practitioners, culture makers, and
funders to help Americans build stronger relationships, embrace our
differences, and rediscover our shared humanity, so we can solve
our most urgent challenges together.
- City Year Alumni Bridging Study
Joe Zappala, Vice President of Communications
City Year, Inc.
607-339-1098
joseph.zappala@cityyear.org