The Chicago Hub at The University of Texas at Austin provides program design, training, and continuous quality improvement support for the City of Chicago Department of Family and Support Services Youth Services Division (this includes Youth Employment, Enrichment and Mentoring Programs) serving 40,000 youth across 150+ agencies. Activities include developing training plans, designing and delivering professional development workshops on youth program development, organizational capacity building, and data-driven quality improvement. The Chicago Hub also designs, collects and analyzes youth self-report surveys (including the One Summer Chicago Youth Survey, n=15,000), facilitates continuous quality improvement support sessions with youth non-profit agencies to help them use both survey data and lived experience expertise to improve youth programming, and conducts workshops for youth and caregivers to strengthen engagement and service effectiveness.
Overall, the Chicago Hub aims to enhance youth non-profit service program performance, promote positive youth development, and support evidence-informed practice implementation across DFSS-funded youth programming across the City of Chicago. Learn more about DFSS-funded Youth Programs through an impact report that the Chicago Hub designed with DFSS.