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Researching Youth Economic Opportunity

August 23, 2018 by Amie Thao

Mayor Durkan’s administration wants to find ways to connect youth with good jobs by creating a citywide strategy for youth, economic opportunity, and the future of work.

We have just completed a nearly three-month research phase focused on understanding the opportunities and challenges facing youth and young adults when considering their future – particularly when taken into consideration with the implications of changing employer expectations and forces like automation.

Our deliverable for this research phase of this project is an interactive report of all our findings including qualitative research, quantitative analyses, and supporting secondary research.

To view, go to bit.ly/youthofseattle


Research Process

To scope our project, we created a research plan and carried out literature reviews and landscape analyses. We conducted organizational research by interviewing directors and staff from departments that serve young people.

Then we hit the streets to hear directly from residents.

Interviewing Young People

Staff members and interns volunteered to interview young people at different locations around Seattle. Research activities included hour-long scheduled interviews as well as pop-up photo booths.

The photo booths elicited interest from people passing by, who–in exchange for a short interview–would receive a free photo for professional or personal use. We created several pop-up photo booths to capture people’s stories.

One location was at Seattle Central.

Free Youth Photo Booth at Seattle Central

Another location was inside The Armory at Seattle Center.

Pop Up Photo Booth

Free Youth Photo Booth at the Armory

Between our 1-hour scheduled interviews and our quick intercept-style interviews, we had over 25 hours of tape. We transcribed the the audio and pulled out interesting quotes.

Transcribing Interviews

In ten weeks, we were able to talk to over a hundred young people, parents, and employers.

Interviews

Our interviews produced hundreds of data points and to make sense of it – we externalized it all by putting individual notes on the wall.

Synthesizing Research

We interpreted each data point by asking ourselves, What does this mean? Why does it matter? We organized the notes based on inferred likeness. We started seeing patterns across people.

For example, a theme emerged around the need for young people to have support from caring adults.

Sample Data Point

Our core project team of two collected, processed, and synthesized the data, but we invited other staff to join us at every step of the process.

This served to create a shared sense of what happened in the research and helped us to make meaning out of data and come up with actionable insights.

Discussing Insights

Our research generated hundreds of data points and dozens of themes.

Data Points in Spreadsheet

Ultimately we ended up with 16 insights to refine. We used flow diagramming and combined insights and used other methods to find new ideas.

Research Insights

We shared our work with our partners as we went.

City Partners

We facilitated activities to have staff learn human-centered design tools and have the opportunity to contribute their own observations and insights.

Insight Worksheets

Through our research, city staff cultivated a deeper understanding of youth and young adult experiences and how to better support their needs on their journey to careers.

David & Litzy

Our work took a human-centered approach to shift the conversation towards designing ideas, policies and initiatives to address our young residents’ strengths and needs.


Next Steps

The insights generated from our research will be used to inform a series of public workshops on the week of September 10th.

If you are interested in identify opportunities to create or improve policies, programs, and services – join us!

  • Check back on our website for updates.
  • Read or share our report at bit.ly/youthofseattle
  • Send an email to amie.thao@seattle.gov

This work will ultimately contribute to informing Mayor Durkan’s portfolio of youth initiatives. We’d love to hear from you.

Kaylyn, Matthew, Ana


Thank you!

Thank you to all our participants and research partners! Special thanks to Seattle Center for hosting a photo booth and to our photographer, Olli Tumelius.

Susan & River

Stay tuned to hear more about our research activities in our next post.

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Filed Under: Design, Innovation & Performance, Innovation Team Tagged With: economic development, youth

An Inspiring Visit to Kansas City, Missouri: Takeways from the Middle

May 28, 2018 by Adam

Thank you, Kansas City! I visited for the Midwest Symposium on Social Entrepreneurship. I left feeling inspired by so many rich examples of community-driven efforts to promote opportunity, and by how much our cities have in common.

The middle is the new edge.

That’s how Columbia Business School Professor Georgia Levenson Keohane opened her keynote at the Midwest Symposium on Social Entrepreneurship. She fired up the crowd in Kansas City by highlighting how much “the middle” of the country has to contribute to a conversation about economic opportunity and the future of work that can at time seem focused only on what large coastal cities have to offer. Her point was that the Midwest was on the cutting edge. And she’s right. I left feeling impressed and inspired by what that community is doing to nurture community-driven ideas.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Conferences and Networks

Results for America

May 20, 2018 by Tina Walha

Results for America’s Local Government Fellows program was founded in September 2014 to provide an advanced group of local government leaders in diverse and influential cities and counties across the country the knowledge and support to implement strategies that consistently use data and evidence to drive policy and budget decisions on major policy challenges. The City of Seattle was selected in 2015, and the fellowship was transferred to the Innovation & Performance Director in November 2017 at the time of the mayoral transition.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Conferences and Networks

Harvard Civic Analytics Network: Spring Convening

May 20, 2018 by Richard Todd

 

Earlier this month I represented Seattle at the biannual convening of the Civic Analytics Network (“CAN”). The network, hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center, is a national network of data analytics practitioners from cities and counties that work together in order to further the use of data in government services.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Conferences and Networks, Data Analytics

For People by People: Better connecting residents to city services through design

January 31, 2018 by Rodrigo Sanchez

Amie Thao, Civic Designer for the City of Seattle

In January, Innovation & Performance worked on a project to explore opportunities to increase access to city benefit programs and streamline program processes. At the outset the solution was predetermined, an online portal which would provide a one-stop shop to all city services and programs. Innovation & Performance doesn’t do predetermined solutions, so we set off to do our own research to test assumptions. We used many approaches to investigate and develop ideas to address the problem such as interviews with city staff, observations of community hubs, and interviews with city residents.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Innovation Team

Education & Early Learning’s new platform for continuous improvement

January 3, 2018 by Leah Tivoli

This engagement… “initiated important conversations about what our department strategic goals are and how we should measure progress. These conversations were occurring in silos, not at the broader level”, “moved us to actually adopting a broader set of performance measures”, “an interactive website with goals, metrics and current progress” – Department of Education and Early Learning

THE NEED 

The Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL) delivers quality programs to pre-school, K-12, and post-secondary populations served by the Seattle Public School district.  DEEL’s mission is to ensure that all Seattle children have the greatest opportunity to succeed in school and in life and to graduate from school ready for college and a career. DEEL regularly collected classroom data that provided insight into student performance trends (e.g. test scores) but sought greater insight on how to evaluate and improve the operation of their own programs.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Performance Management

Innovation Team’s Portfolio to Reduce Youth and Young Adult Homelessness

December 15, 2017 by Tina Walha

THE NEED // INTRODUCTION

In 2017, 11,643 individuals experiencing homelessness were counted in King County. An estimated 2,833 individuals were in families with children, 135 of those families were households headed by a young parent under 25 years of age. An estimated 1,498 individuals were unaccompanied youth and young adults, including 221 unaccompanied minors. Since 2013, the number of homeless students in Seattle Public Schools increased by 55% to 3,612.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Innovation Team

Innovation Team’s Portfolio to Address Disparities Facing Young Black Men

June 15, 2017 by Tina Walha

THE NEED // INTRODUCTION

Opportunities abound in Seattle, yet disparities persist for young black men related to economic, educational, and social outcomes. These disparities manifest themselves in many ways: A disproportionately high impact of violence, reduced access to opportunity, and perceived lower levels of well-being. In recent years, Seattle has seen an increase in youth involved in shootings and domestic violence and this violence has disproportionately affected communities of color.  [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Innovation Team

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