Elora Way and Sarah Goan from the Catherine Cutler Institute published an article in the Maine Policy Review entitled, “Building Youth Resiliency and Aspirations During a Crisis: Lessons Learned from Maine’s Aspirations Incubator During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Their team, the Data Innovation Project (DIP), is engaged in a multi-year evaluation of the Emanuel & Pauline A. Lerner Foundation’s Aspirations Incubator (AI) pilot initiative invested in strategic capacity building for youth development organizations in rural Maine.
The AI programs were halfway through the pilot when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted programming. The paper highlights the innovative responses undertaken by the AI programs and shares critical aspects of the AI model that made these responses successful.