Community Involvement to Design and Implement a Culturally-Appropriate College and Career Readiness Program for Urban American Indian Youth

Introduction: American Indian (AI) students have the highest dropout rate of any other ethnicity in our community. The Phoenix Indian Center (PIC), working with the Urban Indian Coalition of Arizona, two local high school districts, several businesses, and AI social services agencies, developed the Forward Promise program. The program focuses on dropout prevention and career training that promotes workforce development and college/career education. Over three years, with multiple funding sources, the PIC offered this program for young men within the cultural lens of AI identity.

Methods: Along with involvement from community and coalition leaders, PIC sought input from a leadership council composed of students who designed and assisted in the implementation of prevention programs within their schools and communities. The council, PIC’s program and social media staff, and the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center evaluation staff then developed methodologies designed to capture data in a variety of areas—program offerings and events, marketing materials, parent and key informant feedback, program evaluation (e.g., youth pre and post surveys, overall programming satisfaction), and the quality of agency partnerships.

Results: Results indicated that the program built upon AI culture as a protective factor. Ninety percent of the participants were affiliated with at least one tribe, and most (87.5%) agreed or strongly agreed that they felt good about their AI background. Use of this cultural lens has been a factor in high consumer satisfaction with programming, lending to the sustainability of the program. The work with community partners, especially other AI services, allows for provision of direct crisis management in behavioral health, medical needs, housing assistance, and other needs impacting daily living and survival. However, data suggest that the partners have demonstrated issues related to communication, coordination, and collaboration. Further, several partners, including those with signed agreements, have yet to deliver on promised data or services.

Conclusions: While the partners helped establish program goals and brought in additional funding and agencies, true collaboration is a work-in-progress. Despite positive results and the inclusion of females, full implementation has not yet been achieved, due to the lack of hands-on participation from some partners to offer the services outlined in the program design. Interagency coordination to include tutoring, mentoring and academic follow-up services still needs to be incorporated. Coordination has been time-consuming and requires that additional steps and measures be put in place to address the challenge of partnerships and agency collaboration.