How can we take what’s been learned and accelerate progress for young people in America, especially for those young people who are most vulnerable? How can we create the conditions for success for more young people, more quickly? To answer these questions, America’s Promise reviewed research about what’s changed in the past 20 years in young people’s lives and in our understanding of youth development. We surveyed our network, spoke with young people, and interviewed more than 200 people representing nonprofits, corporations, foundations, research and policy entities, educational institutions, government, and other systems.

Turning Points builds on the programmatic insights from Relationships Come First by asking young people enrolled in career pathways programs in four cities – Café Momentum in Dallas; Per Scholas in the Bronx, Urban Alliance in Washington, DC, and Year Up in the Bay Area – to  describe how the relationships in their lives shape their development.

In this brief, the authors present a web of support framework to describe how youth relate to adults and peers in their lives, and how these relationships provide the supports necessary for young people to thrive. This framework is composed of three key layers, each of which contributes to a young person’s development: relationships, resources, and networks/social capital.

Much has been written about how to prevent students from leaving high school before graduating, and which life experiences or risk factors