Page 60 - Companies Report 2018 public

Youth Futures
Founded in 2014

Transforming Risk into Opportunity
Youth Futures is one of Israel's leading positive intervention programs, aiming to empower and
advance children, youth and their families who live in Israel's social and geographic peripheries. The
vision of Youth Futures is to provide these children and their families with security, tools for success,
and equal opportunities to realize their unique and individual potential.

Youth Futures began in 2006 as a flagship program of The Jewish Agency, and has since
expanded its operational model to become an effective empowerment program for 12,000 youth
at-risk and their families. Each of the 36 low-income communities in which Youth Futures operates,
representing different sectors of Israeli society, including the ultra-Orthodox, Arab, Bedouin, and
Druze, has a Family and Community Coordinator in each location, who works to help children and
parents access the available social services to which they are entitled, teaches parenting skills,
encourages parents to be more actively involved in children’s lives, helps parents manage the family
economy, and harnesses the resources of the community to build a positive educational
environment for all children. Additionally, Youth Futures “Mentors” in each school – young adults
specially trained for this role – work with individual children and their parents to help them
strengthen their interpersonal, intrapersonal, and academic skills.

From monitoring program graduates, the program’s long-term benefit is evident in graduates’
abilities to integrate in normative study frameworks, zero drop-out rates, and high motivation for
army service. Active involvement of graduates in volunteer programs in the communities in which
they grew up can also be seen.

As of April 2015, Youth Futures began its new journey as a subsidiary company of The Jewish
Agency. The official name of the new company is Youth Futures, Ltd. It is designed as a Public
Benefit Corporation (PBC). The company has over 350 employees, including Mentors, Coordinators
and program directors.

The Company has a strong and committed partnership with the Government of Israel, the local
authority and the Israeli public. The transition to a subsidiary company was enacted in partnership
with the Ministry of Education, which has committed significant resources in the Youth Futures
national program. Youth Futures also receives significant support from The Jewish Agency and the
JFNA, with an annual budget of close to $11,000,000.

The company continues to enjoy the professional leadership of two groups. The first, the Board of
Directors which meets four times a year to discuss the ongoing of the company. The second is the
Professional Committee, which is designed to provide professional consultation to the program in
education and working with youth and families at risk. The committee is composed of professionals
from the Ministry of Education and academic circles and meets three times a year in Seminar
Hakibbutzim to help design the professional educational tune of the program. The third is the
Heartbeats professional committee that meets three times a year and consists of the program's
professionals, representatives of government ministries, experts from the field of early childhood
and representatives of research and development.

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