PROJECT DESIGN
The ENLACE y Avance project design is based on the model advanced by the partnership in its planning proposal. Key characteristics, or "ENLACE signatures," of the model and project design include:
- Wrap-around services delivered by advocacy teams to cohorts of ENLACE scholars and their families
- Parent engagement and empowerment
- Use of new technologies to connect scholars and families to their schools and communities
The ENLACE y Avance partnership will test its model in full over the K through 14 pipeline through the specific emphases of its three regional clusters. Each cluster has arrived at its unique emphasis through:
- An initial assessment of community needs
- A thorough inventory of existing programs and services
- · Collaborative relationships, fostered within the clusters themselves, from which programmatic connections-leading to program expansions and enhancements-have sprung
The Santa Barbara Cluster will pair advocacy teams with families of ENLACE scholars and will use home visits to help families select from a "menu" of services those, which best meet, their needs. The Santa Barbara Cluster also will address issues of literacy, particularly at the elementary level, where students must build a solid foundation in reading, writing, and mathematics in order to pursue eventual college and career goals. The Ventura Cluster will focus on family development and will assist families, primarily those from rural, farm worker communities, in successfully negotiating critical transitions in their children's personal, social, and academic development. The Oxnard Cluster will use its distanced learning technology to broadcast college-preparation programs in Spanish and English to Latino communities, not only in its region, but also nationally through HACU's network of Hispanic-serving institutions. Even as the Oxnard Cluster is increasing ENLACE y Avance's reach, it will create, enhance, and connect programs and services in order to develop its own K through 14 pipeline. As interventions are found to be effective in one cluster, they will be exported for implementation in other clusters with additional funding secured post-Kellogg.
As is the case with Oxnard, all clusters have begun to coordinate and strengthen existing efforts through infusion of "ENLACE signatures" into programs and services. While each cluster will have its unique emphasis, common across them will be this coherence of ENLACE-enhanced initiatives into a larger whole. This complex of program activities will alleviate any gaps in service or unmet need that students and their families currently encounter. By building on one another's efforts, and by preparing to "hand-off" or transfer students from one set of programs to another as they progress academically, the ENLACE y Avance partners will leverage program dollars and devote human resources toward the goal of increased Latino achievement, retention and graduation rates, and leadership capacity throughout California's central coast.
|
