What we measure
Attendance is not an outcome.
Plenty of programs report how many young people showed up. That measures our activity, not their lives.
Here is what we intend to track instead, for every young person, for at least three years after they stop needing us regularly.
Housing stability. Are they housed, and how many times did that change?
Income. Employed or in school, and whether it held.
Financial footing. Bank account, credit established, an emergency covered without a crisis.
Durable adult relationships. How many adults could they call at 9pm, and are those the same adults a year later? This is the hardest one to measure and the closest to the point.
Crisis recurrence. Emergency shelter, ER visits, justice involvement.
Coming back. How many return as mentors.
What we have not settled
How to follow up over three years without making a young person feel tracked or studied. Consent has to be real and revocable, and a young person who stops answering is exercising a right, not becoming a data problem.
What our comparison is. Without one, any number we publish is decoration.
Who validates it. We would rather bring in an evaluator than grade our own work.
We are publishing this unfinished on purpose. If we quietly figured it out later, you would have no way to tell whether we set the bar after seeing the results.