SEDI's youth work continues to develop new ways to promote youth self sufficiency and employability.   Our inspiration behind our youth policies comes from our work with community partners and on-the-ground experiences.   One of SEDI's core youth policies is that youth-at-risk should be connected to their communities.   Meeting the needs of youth in a community does not always entail introducing new programs or services.   Communities often already have the services that youth need - but they are unable to connect the services together into a seamless continuum that works in a meaningful way for young people navigating the opportunities that exist there.   Helping local youth, then, is often a matter of connecting the dots.  

SEDI calls upon governments and funders to create seamless local networks for youth-at-risk by:   investing in community mobilization efforts to engage local business, educators, governments and social service organizations; and, build the capacity of local youth-serving organizations to develop partnerships, map local resources for youth and offer more individualized case management or navigation approaches for youth.

SEDI hopes to further explore the idea of connecting community youth-serving organizations through a Community Engagement Model.  The CE project would represent a way to focus the available resources of a community on youth with barriers and to apply them in ways that leverage new resources; make the most effective use of the resources available; and, tailor resources to the specific needs of young participants.   In its broadest sense, this initiative aims to encourage communities to identify the needs of youth with barriers as a high priority challenge, and then to harness community resources to meet this challenge.