Our Strategy

Our Mission

HERE to HERE enhances paths to rewarding careers for young people by uniting employers, educators, and community-based organizations beginning in The Bronx and New York City. Our vision is a thriving, inclusive economy, in The Bronx and elsewhere, driven by meaningful partnerships between young people and employers.

HERE to HERE is a critical connector between students, educators, and employers. We analyze the big picture, research best practices, and bring leaders together to change education and employment systems in The Bronx and beyond.

There are many organizations thinking about the future of work and education, but it takes financial resources, trusted partnerships, and a strategic perspective to redefine the systems that unfairly burden Bronx Black and Brown students as they pursue their career ambitions. The challenges are often interrelated, and there are limits to what any single person or single organization can do alone.

Every day, we mobilize the collective expertise of students, business leaders, educators, and local leaders to bridge the gap between education and meaningful careers for all young people.

HERE to HERE Partners to

Align all key stakeholders along the shared goal of launching young people successfully into the labor market.
Codify, invest, and demonstrate specific strategies and approaches that both prepare students for future careers and support employers in finding the talent they need.
Translate proven strategies into policy and practice so that ALL students and employers benefit.

Our Approach

HERE to HERE’s northstar is an effective youth talent development system that braids work experience into each young person’s academic journey. Key principles for this braided pathway approach are as follows:

Student-centered
Educational institutions and employers share responsibility for talent development
Multiple pathways to success that are permeable and have no dead ends
Learning in the workplace is recognized and valued by academia
Builds student social capital

An effective youth talent development system must work well for all—not only an exceptional few students—contribute to employers’ success, and benefit the regional economy.

Everyday our team works with many types of partners to realize this northstar. To get there, we elevate student career success as the primary, shared goal of educators, public agencies, employers, and others who seek a thriving, inclusive economy. We also champion the organizations and people effectively pursuing this work to uplift best practice. To expand these strategies to reach all Bronx and NYC students, we then work to make best practice common practice.

The Key Distinguishers, a shared framework for a high-quality, impactful youth talent development system, is a key piece of our strategy. Visit our Key Distinguishers page to learn more.

Work-Based Learning in Action

Work-based learning opportunities offer young people real-work contexts to explore career paths, apply academic learning, develop technical skills, and build a professional network. Such opportunities provide young people with the perspective to make important academic and career decisions, develop a deeper sense of their passions, and build their workforce readiness. At the same time, work-based learning opportunities introduce businesses to the next generation of talent and provide them with strategies to hire and retain young workers.

HERE to HERE partners with schools and employers to braid work-based learning opportunities into the academic experiences of Bronx and NYC students. Our goal is to demonstrate scalable strategies and grow quality work-based learning opportunities for students. We are particularly focused on developing braided pathways in partnership with NYC public high schools and The City University of New York (CUNY) colleges.

HERE to HERE provides expertise, training, and work-based learning tools that encourage educational institutions, employers, and youth development nonprofits to partner effectively. Working together, these key stakeholders can promote student career success; integrate work-based learning into curriculum, school design, and accredited occupational pathways; and codify best practice–driving us all closer to a youth talent development system that works.

Examples of our work

High School: We work with a network of 15 Bronx high schools as well as the NYC Department of Education to integrate work-based learning into school culture and curriculum, resulting in close to 30% of network school students in paid or credit-bearing work-based learning experiences. We see this engagement as a potential tipping point for school-wide systemic change.
Postsecondary: We are actively embedding work-based learning into CUNY Central and a number of CUNY campuses that serve a high percentage of Bronx students. In 2021, we supported the launch of the Bronx Recovery Corps at Lehman College a new Peace Corps-inspired initiative that combines work and learning for CUNY students while providing employers with the talent they need to recover and thrive.
Learning Communities: Working with leaders across HERE to HERE network schools who are invested in work-based learning, we are implementing our Key Distinguishers, the core components we’ve identified as key to successful work-based learning. Read our latest newsletters to keep up with our Learning Communities.
CareerWise New York: In partnership with leading NYC companies we launched, incubated, and spun-off CareerWise New York, a youth apprenticeship model focused on providing young people opportunities in growing NYC industries while offering employers a direct role in developing work-ready talent and a talent-acquisition strategy.
The Thinkubator: In collaboration with former The Bronx PIC employer members, The Do School, and DreamYard, we developed and incubated The Thinkubator, which empowers young people to help address key issues facing Bronx business and learn the principles of design thinking.
The New York Jobs CEO Council and local Bronx employers: None of this work will succeed without employers engaged every step of the way. We work to bring employers to the table to design programs, engage in the development of talent, and advocate for critical policy changes.

By advancing a suite of effective strategies, like leveraging the CDOS credential, using Key Distinguishers to set a standard for high-quality virtual internships, and championing existing programs like NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), HERE to HERE’s practice does not focus narrowly on the success of just one program or initiative, but on the achievement of lasting public and private institutional change needed to braid work with learning for all NYC students.

All of the above work informs our approach to policy and strategies for systems change. Read more about this work in the section below.

Work-based learning is an educational strategy that promotes students learning about work, learning through work, and learning for work.

Moving from Demonstration of Best Practice to Scale

Too often, best practice fails to scale, remaining available to too few students. HERE to HERE works alongside young people, businesses, and communities to make the case for changing institutional policies and practices to prioritize student career success. We do this by showing the value of work-based learning and advocating for policy changes that make best practice available to all students.

We conduct and review research, codify and document best practice, and advocate for the programs and policies that drive an effective youth talent development system. Central to such a system is increasing access to high quality, employer-engaged work-based learning experiences and career pathways for students in grade 9-16 institutions and New York City businesses. For high school and postsecondary institutions, this means changes to policies and funding streams that guide how schools provide education that prepares students for lifelong career success. For businesses, this includes changing the role employers play in developing talent and connecting to their communities.

The goal of HERE to HERE’s work is to reinvent youth talent development—and to achieve the economic development goals of New York while producing outstanding career outcomes for Bronx students. In January 2020, we outlined our policy strategy in our “One Step Closer” Report, which underscored how work-based learning can respond to the major equity gaps in our educational system. In that report, we presented a policy agenda to address the drastic disparities for young people in the areas of college completion and employment across lines of race, ethnicity, and household income, as well as other persistent challenges to inclusivity and shared prosperity.

Some of our priority policies include:

Embedding career success into high school graduation requirements

We support usage of the Career Development and Occupational Studies (CDOS) as a substitute for a 5th Regents exam toward a full Regents diploma. We encourage the use of Option1 CDOS, whereby students engage in a range of rigorous WBL activities over the course of their high school experience and graduate with a clear postsecondary plan. In the longer-term, we believe that New York State should reduce its Regents exam requirements to as few as two (ELA and Math) with more work-based learning activities and assessments substituting for the other three exams currently required.

Restoring and expanding Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP)

Summer work experience is a vital way in which Bronx and NYC students gain valuable work experience. We would like to see the program restored and expanded beyond 2019 funding levels. We also strongly advocate for growing the school-based SYEP model to ensure that summer internships are connected to students’ year-round activities and academic interests.

Amend limits on student work hours

When we align student work– in and out of the classroom–with credit, we help ensure that young people are being prepared for the world of work and that their job experience is valued as a critical part of their education. We believe work hours at apprenticeship or internship sites are deeply connected to student school experience and support regulatory changes that reflect the connection between in-school and on-the-job learning.

Expanding credit for work experience at CUNY

Credit for prior and current work experience recognizes how much students can and do learn on the job. We recommend CUNY create more applied associates and bachelor degree programs where paid work experience constitutes a significant percentage of the degree requirement. This would include ways to create opportunities for students to provide structured reflections and accreditations of the range of jobs they hold while attending school.

Focus CUNY resources on career success outcomes

Incentivize and concentrate increased resources into more employer-engaged, applied learning programs, and empowered campus career centers.

Raising Student Voice

To achieve our vision of an equitable, inclusive economy, stakeholders must align. Yet all too often we discuss and make changes without engaging students, those most affected by institutional change. Recognizing this, HERE to HERE places student voice at the center of our work. We partner with students and demonstrate authentic co-creation with young people, not only to promote work-based learning, but also to support student participation in the design of work-based learning opportunities in their school and community.

Check out our student-driven Language Guide

We do this in a variety of ways:

Student Ambassadors: Our Student Ambassadors are a collective of students who represent schools in the HERE to HERE high school network. These students promote expanded and enhanced work-based learning opportunities in their schools and communities, shape experiences that braid learning and learning, and advocate for policies that expand their access to opportunity.
Work-Based Learning Student Summit: This conference, organized and facilitated by young people–including the HERE to HERE Student Ambassadors–brings awareness to and elevates the power of work-based learning. View footage from our Winter 2020 Work-Based Learning Student Summit
One Step Closer report: In January 2020, we released a report calling for the expansion and enhancement of work-based learning as a means of combating concerning increases in inequity. This report relied heavily on research conducted by student leaders, as well as youth thought leadership, partnership, and collaboration from our colleagues at Teens Take Charge.
The HERE to HERE Language Guide: Informed and created by students, the Language Guide is a resource for using asset-based language. The document was developed to better understand the language that surrounds and affects young people in The Bronx and beyond, and was created based on our belief that inclusive spaces in which young people thrive must be driven by students and their needs. Using asset-based language helps to break down barriers while building healthy, meaningful relationships with young people.
Leadership in Advocacy: As an organization, we believe that it is critically important for us to hold space for young people to use their voice and inform change. We offer students a platform to share concerns and solutions around access to jobs. We support students to publish articles and editorials, and host summits like the Student Ambassador-led Adapting SYEP Virtual Summit 2020. This virtual conference was held in response to budget cuts tied to SYEP as a result of the pandemic.
In January 2021, HERE to HERE and Teens Take Charge published The Story of #SaveSYEP, in which youth advocates share how they came together to save Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) for thousands of students following New York City’s cancellation of the program in Summer 2020. HERE to HERE’s Policy and Impact team, in coordination with our Student Voice work, employed two interns in Spring 2020 and worked with them to build their advocacy skills, which they then activated in the #SaveSYEP campaign. The two interns, La’Toya and Jorge Morales, have since become recognized citywide advocacy leaders.

Increasing Our Impact

HERE to HERE is proud to have partnered and incubated The Thinkubator, CareerWise New York, and the HERE to HERE Business Council, the latter of which has scaled and evolved into the New York Jobs CEO Council, which works closely with CareerWise New York. Additionally, in response to the impact of COVID-19 on The Bronx community, we actively partnered with a number of organizations to launch The Bronx Community Relief Effort.