Programs serving youth range from preschool to college preparation.
Programs serving youth cover a wide array of activities including:
Child care and preschool programs
Afterschool programs
Tutoring programs
Mentoring programs
Delinquency prevention
Charter schools
Sports and recreation programs
Visual and performing arts programs
Child welfare -- community foster care, "treatment foster care," and "independent living" programs for young people who have been abused or neglected.
College preparation programs
You can use the Community Inventory to quickly map these organizations in your community.
A useful starting point for learning more is the U.S. Corporation for National and Community Service's summary page on at-risk youth listing.
The most prominent model today is the comprehensive neighborhood model, which includes a full array of educational, health and human services to enable young people living in struggling neighborhoods to get the resources they need from birth through college graduation. Harlem Children's Zone, the model for President Obama's planned Promise Neighborhoods, is the foremost example of this model.
To learn more about the Harlem Children's Zone, go to http://www.hcz.org/ or read the New York Times article on the organization at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/magazine/the-harlem-project.html.
To learn more about "promising" and "proven" programs and practices, check out these resources:
RAND Corporation's Promising Practices Network - http://www.promisingpractices.net/
Child Trends - http://www.childtrends.org/
Harvard Family Research Project - http://www.hfrp.org/
Public/Private Ventures - http://www.ppv.org/ppv/publications.asp (see listings on mentoring, out-of-school time, and in-school initiatives).
Pathways Mapping Initiative - http://www.cssp.org/major_initiatives/pathways.html