The Learning Center Model

Learning Centers are designed to accelerate college and career readiness for disadvantaged youth. After the Recession, Larkin Street developed the Learning Centers to address the needs of homeless youth who were disconnected from formal education and employment. Our scalable, replicable model is recognized internationally for its innovation and impact.

Larkin Street Youth Services' Learning Center Model

Developed in 2014, the Learning Center model is an intensive six-month program that helps homeless youth, ages 12-24, accelerate their college and career readiness, achieve physical and emotional wellness, and build a permanent pathway out of poverty. This model combines academic preparation, experiential learning, mindfulness practice, and industry-based career exploration. Content is delivered using blended learning, an innovative approach that utilizes technology to provide individualized instruction, allowing youth to progress at their own pace. This unique combination of learning strategies helps close the college and career readiness gap for homeless youth, many of whom have been disconnected from formal education and mainstream employment for long periods of time and face a multitude of barriers to re-engaging in those systems. The model addresses these barriers holistically, intervening at the intersection of wellness, housing, education, and employment.

Learning Centers help homeless youth prepare for and succeed in the workforce of the future by not only providing basic education and job readiness training, but a fundamental understanding of a high-demand industry. Larkin Street has operated individual Learning Center cycles in the technology, healthcare, and hospitality industries, and the model has the potential to be replicated with a focus on any career-track, as new high-growth fields emerge.

Larkin Street has successfully scaled the Learning Center model within San Francisco, which experiences the highest level of income inequality of any city in California. In the three years since the program launched, 73% of graduates have made significant academic or employment gains, with higher outcomes for each cohort. If scaled and replicated, the Learning Center model will equip disconnected and disadvantaged youth to keep pace with an evolving world and achieve a sustainable, living wage career.

The degree of youth disconnection from the workforce is at unprecedented levels nationwide. While some improvements have been seen in labor market participation since the Recession, today just over half of young adults, ages 18-24, are currently employed. The picture is even starker for homeless youth who have limited academic attainment and minimal work experience. In San Francisco, only 16% of homeless youth report having a job, paid internship, or other employment, compared to 52% of the general population of youth. The Learning Center model employs technology and innovative learning strategies to propel youth toward greater equity in today’s workforce.

Closing the college and career readiness gap for youth who have been disconnected from formal education and mainstream employment for long periods of time is a key objective of the Learning Center model. Incremental educational gains are measured through the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE), administered before and after each Learning Center cycle. Other significant educational or employment gains include earning GED components, enrolling in Larkin Street’s Bridge Academy college preparation program, enrolling in post-secondary education, or securing full-time employment. Since the Learning Centers launched in 2014, 73% of program graduates have achieved one or more of these gains. 

The Learning Center model improves long-term outcomes for homeless youth, ages 12-24, by getting them on a path out of poverty and toward a sustainable, living-wage career. We achieve this by optimizing our use of technology in delivering our curriculum, and by combining academic preparation, experiential learning, mindfulness practice, and industry-based career exploration into our model. Over the next 12 months, Larkin Street’s aim is to refine and codify our Learning Center model, and to standardize the underlying framework of each Learning Center cycle. We will deliver three cycles of the Learning Center curriculum, reaching a total of 36 youth.

New programming will be developed and implemented by Larkin Street's staff. - Launch a new Learning Center track in the Arts, Media, and Entertainment industry in the next 12 months.

Programming will be implemented and enrollment captured by Larkin Street's program staff, and data will be tracked by our Research & Evaluation Department. - Operate three cycles of the Learning Center in the next 12 months, reaching a total of 36 homeless youth.

Youth outcomes related to grade level advancement, the GED, post-secondary enrollment, and employment will be captured by Larkin Street's program staff and tracked by our Research & Evaluation Department. - 70% of youth who complete a Learning Center will make significant educational or employment gains.

Larkin Street delivers the Learning Center curriculum using blended learning, an innovative approach that utilizes technology to provide individualized instruction, allowing youth to work at their own pace. A blended learning approach enables all program participants to make immediate and significant progress, regardless of whether they are working toward their GED, college degree, or even developing their basic literacy and numeracy skills.

The Learning Center model also employs mobile technology to ensure that youth are able to access our curriculum anywhere and anytime. Mobile technology is cost effective and lowers the barriers to program engagement.

Larkin Street’s goal is to meet youth where they are. Disconnected youth, especially those experiencing homelessness, require education and employment services that work for them. In recognition of the barriers that homeless youth face, Larkin Street’s Learning Centers take advantage of technology to lower the threshold for program participation. Blended learning addresses the unique needs and situation of each individual, optimizing their progress from the very second they engage with our curriculum. Mobile technology stretches the walls of the classroom, allowing participants to engage and learn at the times most convenient for them.

Learning Centers are open to all youth, age 12-24, experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. The program requires participants to commit to six hours of instruction a day, five days per week, over the course of six months.

A savings and incentive structure reinforces consistent attendance and participation, while allowing youth to earn income as they focus on the nearly full-time program. Participants earn cash incentives up to $75/week, and a further $250 can be earned on a monthly basis towards their savings, totaling a potential $2,400 in cash and $1,500 in savings over the course of the six-month program.

Larkin Street's Learning Centers are supported by restricted private grants and unrestricted general operating funds. To sustain the continued development of our Learning Center model and implementation of these services, Larkin Street's Board and staff work diligently throughout the year to renew support from past funders, as well as pursue and solicit new sources of funding. Larkin Street's Learning Centers offer a universal model for closing the college and career achievement gap for homeless and disadvantaged youth; however, the majority of our funding comes from local sources. Over the coming year, Larkin Street will explore opportunities for national funding, such as the Solve challenge, to support what is truly a national model.

In the year ahead, Larkin Street – like all human services agencies – faces uncertainty at the national level under the new Presidential administration. We are anticipating reductions in federal spending that could directly affect our programming through proposed cuts to HUD or the end of the Interagency Council on Homelessness. We are entering uncharted territory for our agency, but that does not deter us from our efforts. Now more than ever, we must be able to count on private philanthropic support to ensure that critical services like the Learning Center continue to meet the needs of youth experiencing homelessness.

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Larkin Street Youth Services and our Learning Centers have been internationally recognized for their innovation. We have thoroughly evaluated our program model and have the evidence to show that our Learning Centers are driving youth toward long-term stability and career-track employment. Support through the Solve challenge will not only provide the financial investment needed to sustain and refine our Learning Center model over the coming year, but recognition as a Solver would provide Larkin Street with the additional credibility and recognition needed to propel the Learning Centers to the next level of impact.

We partner with Sylvan Learning to provide academic preparation, UCSF’s Osher Center to provide mindfulness practice, and Outward Bound and Wildlife Associates to provide experiential learning. Since the program launched in 2014, we have received private funding from The California Wellness Foundation, Wells Fargo, Vodafone, Dropbox, Gap, Microsoft, and HP.

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