Overview: The Framework for Youth Success demonstrates a convergence of goals between education, social service, health, and other public sectors that support a holistic, integrated-systems approach to working toward successful youth, and ultimately, successful communities.  The framework illustrates that it takes a united effort to build successful youth.  Intentional, effective partnerships that address all aspects of youth development—education, strong relationships, health, recreation, civic, etc.—are all essential to this work.   The framework provides each individual, agency, organization, department, or municipality the opportunity to identify where they "fit" along the sides of the triangle that surrounds the youth and his/her family with the various types of services required, as no single entity can accomplish the desired outcomes for our youth alone.  

The framework recognizes that cultural competence and efforts toward health and safety must be the shared responsibility of all, and that we must keep a constant eye out for ideas, practices, and methods to ensure the accomplishment of these essential elements. The outside edge of the circle features the phases of effective, efficient, purposeful actions (which may be co-occurring) that inform us regarding the next step in creating, maintaining, and enacting programs and processes that ensure successful outcomes for youth within their families and other relationships, schools, work environments, and communities. 

The framework’s cycle of innovation and evolution’s purpose is to bring awareness to the fact that the work we do in communities relative to afterschool must be highly responsive to the changing needs of the youth and their families, must access and utilize the latest research and technology, must foster and make the most of partnerships, and must meet the demands of performing with efficiency and effectiveness—even when that means doing more with less.  Innovation and evolution speak to reaching beyond the idea of simply sustaining programs into looking far out ahead and aligning quality programs and resources with what is needed to meet challenges before they become too large to address.