For over two decades, MANY has played a vital role in the field of youth and family services through various alliances and leadership roles in a number of nationwide initiatives. To learn more about these Strategic Initiatives, both past and present, select the initiatives below.

MANY is the creator of the Positive Pathways Program (P3), a multi-level strategy to reduce community violence and improve the long-term labor market prospects of juvenile offenders.  The target audience for this program are youth, ages 16 to 24 from high-poverty, high-crime communities.  P3 connects Individual Pathway Coaches with youth involved in the juvenile justice system and in at-risk situations to provide youth with a menu of holistic services ranging from education programs, life skills training, mentoring, physical/mental health, cultural enrichment, and workforce development.  Youth are active partners in designing and implementing their own Pathway Plan and working towards goals that will improve their labor marketability, life prospects and the long-term success of their families and communities.   Youth are also able to connect to the broader community through restorative justice projects and through participation in a community-wide collaboration to reduce violence.

The P3 Model is currently being demonstrated at five sites:

Many is working closely with each of these sites to provide technical assistance in the implementation of the P3 Model, and to convene community and faith-based organizations, agencies, and businesses with youth in the creation of the a vision plan to reduce violence in the community.

This initiative is funded by an $8.5 million demonstration grant, Serving Juvenile Offenders in High-Poverty, High-Crime Communities Project, from the Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration.

Additional P3 resources are available in our Knowledge Center under the Strategic Initiatives section. 

MANY's roots are in the field of runaway and homeless youth services. Founded in 1988 by services providers, MANY has provided leadership and support to grantees operating programs that offer alternatives to involvement in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems for more than 18 years. These programs create a community safety net for youth that have runaway from home, are without a home, or have been thrown out of their homes by their parents or guardians.

These services are unique and require a unique approach to staff and program development. MANY builds the capacity of these organizations and their staff through training, technical assistance, networking, convening, and education.

When U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched its Mentoring Children of Prisoners initiative in, MANY was asked to develop training and technical assistance support for the newly funded grantees and to outreach to potential grantees in order to assist them in developing an application for federal funding. As a result, we had the opportunity to learn a great deal about this body of work, the experts that support its development, and the resources that support effective implementation. As one grantee stated 'It is unusual to find an agency with such diverse training skills and an intricate understanding of the issues facing children of incarcerated parents. They do great work and I would recommend them to anyone in need of training or technical assistance'.

Amachi: In 1999, MANY began working with the Amachi program during its pilot phase in Philadelphia. Amachi is a faith-based mentoring model for children of prisoners launched by Dr. Rev. W. Wilson Goode in partnership with Public Private Ventures and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. Recognizing the unique characteristics of this program, MANY developed a customized T&TA model to support the development of this initiative. The impact of this work is demonstrated by program outcomes that far exceed targets.
'Our Volunteer Coordinators are still talking about the training they had with MANY and how useful it was' -- Dr. Wilson Goode.

The opportunity to 'give back' is just one of the many benefits of community service. In 1994, MANY launched our AmeriCorps program as one of the first grantees in this new national program to promote active citizenship. Together with several of our member agencies, MANYCorps was launched as a capacity-building strategy for runaway and homeless youth programs. Today, MANYCorps Boosters provides this same opportunity. Learn more about AmeriCorps by visiting www.nationalservice.gov. Interested in learning more about how AmeriCorps can expand your program’s impact? Contact us.

Much has been written about helping youth to develop healthy dating relationships. Schools have integrated this into their curriculums and faith communities have addressed it through youth groups. Unfortunately these are places that are not typically where one would find a runaway and homeless youth and, yet, unhealthy and violent relationships are all too common in their lives. Domestic Violence programs and Runaway and Homeless Youth programs have much to learn from one another but it is rare to find collaborations between these fields. MANY and the PCADV (Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence) collaborated to bring these two systems together as a Learning Community to share information about one anothers’ services and to develop strategies and tools to improve outreach and services that address the shared concern. Together we have learned a great deal and have developed tools to expand our work beyond the learning community so that others may benefit.

National Network for Youth Community Youth Development Project: Under this Dewitt-Wallace funded project, MANY was part of a group of leaders in the youth services field who did pioneering work in developing the philosophical framework, curriculum, and training materials that are accepted today as part the PYD approach. Over a 10-year period, this national team developed a solid foundation of materials and approaches that are the core of MANY's PYD training program.

MANY is a convener and facilitator for the BHYI. This initiative was created in response to a need for a comprehensive continuum of housing, resources, services and care for Baltimore's homeless and unstably housed youth and young adults between the ages of 14-24. While Baltimore has many valuable resources for the homeless, there are significant gaps, especially for older youth. Very few services are available for youth under 18 and most facilities and programs are not designed to be developmentally appropriate for youth ages 16-24. They do not have the capacity to provide significant supplementary service and there are few coordinated linkages among the services to this population. In 2007, BHYI and MANY received a three year Compassion Capital Communities Empowering Youth grant for $750,000 from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The goal of the grant is to increase the sustainability and capacity of BHYI and the community to serve homeless youth. The grant provides funding for technical assistance and training in the areas of leadership development, organizational development, program development and community engagement.