Almost all of the youth who enter WAY are classified special education, are severely troubled, and come from impoverished New York City neighborhoods. Despite this, our ongoing research shows that WAY graduates have significantly better graduation rates than young people living below the poverty level nationally and even than the general population of minority students in New York City.

Further, more than 80 percent of WAY alumni studied who are between 21 and 30 years of age are employed, with mean earnings for full-time workers of $23,000; 95% have no criminal arrest record. (According to the Child Welfare League of America, less than half the young people leaving foster care have jobs and 25 to 40 percent experience homelessness.)

How WAY works
WAY starts with a program of sequenced work experiences beginning with unpaid chores, progressing to paid learn-to-work jobs, and then to regular jobs. Normally, this part of WAY occurs while a teen is in a residential program. Once a youth is ready to return home, he has the option of applying to enter WAY’s highest level, called WAY Scholarship. He must promise to stay in school, work part-time, and save for future education. CV, in turn, promises to match each youngster's savings up to $500 a year and to provide a personal mentor (a paid, professional counselor) who will be a stable adult in his life, helping the participant set and reach his goals.

In 1997, WAY received the National Youth Employment Coalition's PEPNet Award for being one of the most "promising and effective youth employment programs in the nation." WAY was featured in Youth Programs that Work for America published by The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) and More Things that DO Make a Difference for Youth: A Compendium of Evaluations of Youth Programs and Practices, published by the American Youth Policy Forum. In March of 1999, CWLA included WAY in testimony before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources for the hearing on "Challenges Confronting Older Children Leaving Foster Care." In 2002, WAY was selected by the Child Welfare League of America as the first model to be promoted through its Research to Practice initiative, which is designed to bring well-documented programs to the field.

In 2001, the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) published the results of a 15-year longitudinal study on alumni of the program who were between 21 and 30 when studied. To see the executive summary of this study, click here.