The Horizons 32K Stewardship Board kicked off the year by building alignment, identifying priorities and laying the foundation for long-term system coordination impact to mitigate youth disconnection in education and the workforce. As the Stewardship Board transitions to a quarterly meeting cadence, attention is shifting to building out workgroups, assigning leadership roles and co-designing actionable strategies with partners across sectors. Horizons 32K is also gaining visibility through regional convenings, where it continues to highlight youth-driven solutions and elevate promising practices to advance equity and opportunity for disconnected youth.

The inaugural meeting in January welcomed a cross-sector group of leaders from L.A. City, L.A. County, education, youth and community-based organizations to define the board’s role in guiding L.A.’s Blueprint for 32,000 Opportunity Youth Dreams. In February, members participated in a strategic Priority Planning Map activity to surface alignment opportunities, uncover gaps in the education and workforce system, and identify areas where Horizons 32K can lead and support. By March, the coalition introduced the newly formed Youth Advisory Council and also identified four impact initiatives Horizons 32K will launch this spring: college bridging, earn-and-learn pathways to employment, mentoring and holistic support.

Horizons 32K continues to gain traction across the region, where the work was recently spotlighted at three key convenings. At LAEDC’s 88 Cities Summit, UNITE-LA’s Amber Chatman joined a panel showcasing promising practices like K-12 co-location models that unify academic services, support systems and workforce development departments to streamline services for Opportunity Youth. At the Workforce Development Board of the City of Los Angeles' Youth Council meeting, one of four standing committees responsible for shaping and overseeing youth programming, the Youth Council called upon community members, stakeholders and policymakers to unite in support of the blueprint and its ambitious goals. Most recently, Horizons 32K was featured at The Power of Data: Strengthening Collective Strategy, hosted at the California Endowment. This gathering focused on New Ways to Work’s latest data report, which highlights trends related to youth disconnection across the L.A. region. It featured powerful testimonies from young leaders who issued a clear call to action for partners to step up, collaborate and drive meaningful, lasting change.

For more information, please reach out to Amber Chatman, Director of Workforce Systems and Policy, at [email protected].