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William T. Grant Foundation Request for Proposals
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The William T. Grant Foundation announces a grants competition to fund research that will increase our understanding of how to improve supports and opportunities for youth through effective interventions.
Supports and opportunities - such as meaningful relationships with adults, opportunities for skill building, and opportunities to belong - exist in the experiences that young people have with peers, families, organizations, neighborhoods and the larger community. Settings in which these supports and opportunities are more prevalent and developmentally appropriate are likely to foster young people?’s positive development.
Because of the developmental importance of these supports and opportunities, coupled with their fragility and scarcity for some youth, our total grantmaking program will continue to examine theoretically and practically significant questions about their role in youth development, while also encouraging the application of that knowledge. This RFP addresses a subset of that work using three focal questions. Each question emphasizes improvement. By that we mean increasing the quality and quantity of supports and opportunities.
Focal Questions for this RFP:
1. What substantially improves the quality and amount of sustained participation and
engagement of youth in experiences that are likely to enhance their development and well-being?
2. How can local youth-serving organizations and programs be substantially improved and those improvements sustained?
3. How can public systems that directly affect youth be substantially improved and those improvements sustained?
The Foundation expects to make awards ranging from $10,000 to $450,000. Initial concept papers are due on or before September 30, 2002. In December, we will invite applicants to submit full proposals chosen from the concept papers. The full proposals will be due by February 15, 2003. We will make final decisions on successful proposals at our Board meeting in June 2003. Projects can begin between July 1, 2003 and October 1, 2003.
Priority Areas for Proposals
We are interested in funding two types of projects under the RFP:
?• Papers critically reviewing and synthesizing theory and empirical studies relevant to our three focal questions; and
?• Studies of interventions focused on organizational improvement, system improvement, and/or youth sustained participation and engagement in experiences that are productive for individual development.
Both the synthetic reviews and the intervention studies will need to meet the high standards evident in our Funding Guidelines (attached as Attachment 1 and available on our website at www.wtgrantfoundation.org). Our hope is that the reviews will enhance thinking that can lead to subsequent intervention studies, and that the intervention studies will advance both theory and practice.
The interventions proposed for study should be plausibly transportable and effective across settings. Because we are interested in furthering understanding about why various interventions succeed or fail to improve supports and opportunities under various circumstances, the intervention projects need to consider variations on some dimensions important to the theory and practice of intentional change. For example, a study might examine the moderating effects of geographical locale, population, current readiness or capacity to change, or similar factors on the adoption, implementation, effectiveness, and/or sustainability of the intervention.
Given a desire to build on areas addressed by currently funded projects, we are especially interested in reviews and intervention studies that focus on improving health, child welfare, income assistance, juvenile justice and general youth development programs, organizations, and systems. We are also very interested in reviews and intervention studies relevant to advancing our knowledge about how to improve and increase youth participation and engagement in programs, organizations, and less formal or structured settings that are rich in supports and opportunities.
Background/Statement of the Problem
Young people do well when certain supports and opportunities typify their daily experiences. While lists of these supports and opportunities vary, for this solicitation they are defined as stated in a recent report from the National Research Council (NRC), where they are titled ?“Features of Positive Developmental Settings.?” (See attached Attachment 2 for a more complete statement of these supports and opportunities.) These features include:
?• Physical and psychological safety and security;
?• Structure that is developmentally appropriate, with clear expectations for behavior as well as increasing opportunities to make decisions, to participate in governance and rule-making, and to take on leadership roles as one matures and gains more expertise;
?• Emotional and moral support;
?• Opportunities for adolescents to experience supportive adult relationships;
?• Opportunities to learn how to form close, durable human relationships with peers that support and reinforce healthy behaviors;
?• Opportunities to feel a sense of belonging and being valued;
?• Opportunities to develop positive social values and norms;
?• Opportunities for skill building and mastery;
?• Opportunities to develop confidence in one?’s abilities to master one?’s environment (a sense of personal efficacy);
?• Opportunities to make a contribution to one?’s community and to develop a sense of mattering; and
?• Strong links between families, schools, and broader community resources.
[Download the full RFP on the right hand side of this page]
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