Local Cross System Collaborations provide a powerful approach toward ending youth homelessness. Our Local Cross-System Collaboratives (LCSC) on Youth Homelessness address the root causes of homelessness among young people and help to build strong collaborative relationships amongst youth-serving agencies, leading to improved youth outcomes and system functioning.

What makes our approach unique is how we center youth with lived experience and strengthen youth voices. We support the community’s existing Youth Advisory Board (YAB) or help establish a YAB if one is not yet developed in each LCSC community to engage youth with experience of homelessness.

When it comes to equipping communities with the capacity to transform systems, our work within each community depends on where the community is in its journey.

Is Your Community Ready?

Measuring Success

Instead of measuring our success within a specific period, we concentrate on helping LCSC communities achieve particular milestones.

  • Community Meetings

    • LCSC work towards a broad vision of ending youth homelessness requires comprehensive efforts among diverse community sectors.
    • These meetings assist in building consensus on what can and should be done based on the community’s unique assets and needs.
    • The community stakeholders develop an action plan to address the top issues identified.

  • Develop Shared Community Goals

    • Generate shared community goals to address youth experiencing homelessness.
    • The process of setting goals allows the LCSC and YA members to state their needs, clarify their values, evaluate their community, and get a clear view of its problems.

  • Community Needs Assessment

    • This process is designed to build consensus on what can and should be done based on the community’s unique assets and needs.

  • Deploy a Strategy to Strengthen Youth Voice

    • A youth voice approach involves creating a space for authentic youth engagement that builds individual leadership skills, strengthens meaningful relationships, and develops practical solutions to end youth homelessness.
    • NN4Y provides training to youth, including advocacy strategies, policymaking, story-telling strategies, and other professional skills development training.

  • System Mapping Exercise

    • NN4Y works with the LCSC to develop a map that captures all connections between current systems that impact youth experiencing homelessness.