HomeMy WebLinkAboutBHAC Resource Nav Presentation
Building Hope,
One Young Person at a Time
How Resource Navigation Puts the Science of Hope to Work in Jefferson County
Derek Firenze | Resource Navigator @ OWL360
derekf@owl360.org • (360) 531-1846 • owl360.org
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Thank the committee for the time. Introduce yourself as a Resource Navigator at OWL360 - you do this work every day. Introduce OWL360 in one sentence: we work with young people ages
roughly 13-25 in Jefferson County on housing, mental health first-line support, education re-engagement, and workforce readiness. Frame today's talk: instead of talking about crisis
and deficits, we're going to talk about hope - specifically, the Science of Hope, a well-researched, evidence-based framework - and how Resource Navigation puts it into practice as
prevention. Note our LMHC partner follows with the clinical/treatment side, so this stays focused on the upstream, hope-building layer.
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THE FRAMEWORK BEHIND OUR WORK
Hope is not a feeling. It's a skill, and it's measurable
“Hope is the belief that the future will be better than today, and that I have the power to make it so.”
— Hope Theory
Dr. Chan Hellman, Hope Research Center, University of Oklahoma
GOALS
A clear, meaningful picture of each young person’s unique motivation to find a future worth working toward.
PATHWAYS
Real, concrete routes to get there, and strategies to navigate barriers or find new routes if the first is blocked.
INDEPENDENCE
The sustained motivation and agency to keep moving forward, building the muscles that will help them fly.
Decades of research show hope predicts academic and life success more strongly than IQ, past performance, or personality, and that young people with more hope are less likely to become
or remain disconnected from school and work.
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This is the credibility-setting slide - don't rush it. Hope theory isn't a feel-good buzzword, it's a decades-old, peer-reviewed psychological framework (Snyder, later Shane Lopez at
Gallup, and Chan Hellman at the University of Oklahoma's Hope Research Center). Explain the three pillars simply: Goals, Pathways, Willpower - all three have to be present for something
to count as 'hope' rather than just a wish. Land the research citation at the bottom: hope is one of the best predictors we have of whether a young person stays connected to school
and work - which is exactly the population OWL360 serves.
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WHERE HOPE-BUILDING MATTERS MOST
Jefferson County has real opportunity to build hope early
1 in 4
young people ages 16-24 in our county don’t yet have a clear pathway into school, work, or training.
Source: Measure of America, “Youth Disconnection in America”
70%
haven’t yet earned a credential beyond a high school diploma.
Source: Education Research & Data Center
Research on hope consistently finds that young people with stronger goals, pathways, and agency are less likely to become or stay disconnected from school and work. This means we have
precisely the population where hope-centered navigation has the most room to change a trajectory.
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Same underlying local data as before, reframed through a 'yet' lens rather than a deficit lens - these are young people who haven't found their pathway yet, not young people who are
failing. Tie it directly back to the hope research from the previous slide: this is exactly the population the research says responds to hope-centered intervention. That's the bridge
into 'here's what that intervention looks like' on the next slide.
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OUR HOPE-CENTERED MODEL
The Nest: where a young person's goals get named out loud
Coffee. Community. Resources. The Nest is a low-barrier space where young people arrive for a free event, coffee, or wifi, and leave having named a goal, mapped a pathway, and found
someone who believes they can reach it.
A relationship first, a referral second
No diagnosis or referral required to walk in, trust building is at the forefront
Hope first gets modeled by peers
100% of Nest Allies are young adults 30 or under
Pathways that go somewhere real
Navigators connect goals to concrete routes: housing, education, workforce, and mental health.
The Nest isn’t a program a young person has to qualify for. It’s where hope gets built, one relationship at a time.
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Describe The Nest concretely as the physical, drop-in space that operationalizes hope theory. Emphasize peer staffing because that's what makes goal-setting and trust possible fast.
Land the point: this is where the 'goals' and early 'pathways' pieces of hope theory actually happen, in person, before any formal referral.
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HOPE IN ACTION — 2025
What pathway-building looked like in action last year
631
young people connected to real resources
4,506
youth visits, each one a chance to build trust
200
hours of mental health support helping sustain independence
1,464
health & hygiene supplies removing barriers to pathways
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free community events building belonging and connection
5,876
clicks into Hoot360.org directory where young people navigate on their own
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Walk through these six numbers with an eye toward what each one builds, not just what it prevents. 631 connections and 4,506 visits show scale. 200 hours of mental health support and
1,464 hygiene supplies show we're clearing the barriers that block pathways. 5,876 directory clicks shows young people carrying their own agency forward, even outside our walls - that's
willpower in action.
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WHERE WE FIT
Trauma-informed and hope-centered, working as one continuum
OWL360 Resource Navigation
Low-barrier, peer-led, drop-in
Builds goals, pathways, and willpower through motivational interviewing
Trained in Mental Health First Aid
Makes the warm handoff when clinical care is needed
Clinical & Treatment Partners
Licensed mental health counseling & treatment
Diagnosis, therapy, and higher-acuity care
Receives warm handoffs from Navigators
Presenting next — our LMHC partner
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This slide sets up a clean transition to the LMHC speaker. Make the boundary explicit: we build hope and make the warm handoff; we are not a clinical provider. Briefly name that our
LMHC partner will speak next about what happens after that handoff. Keep this tight - it's the pivot point of the 15 minutes.
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SUSTAINING THE WORK
Hope is renewable — if we keep investing in it
OWL360 is entering 2026 with a clear, funded plan to build more goals, pathways, and willpower across the county:
Add additional housing dwellings for more stable ground for paths to take root
Expand supportive & mental-health-informed services at The Nest
Develop deeper partnerships across the county's care continuum
Replace lost federal funding that has historically supported this work
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young people, on average, waiting for a pathway to open up
Every young person met early at The Nest is a young person whose hope has somewhere to go.
We’re asking you to keep investing in the front door.
owl360.org/give • hoot@owl360.org • (360) 344-2374
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Close with the ask, plainly, still in the hope frame. Name the 2026 goals as evidence of a real, funded plan. Use the waitlist number to show demand outstrips capacity - not a failure,
but proof the model works and needs more room to grow. End on the throughline for the whole talk: hope is a skill this committee can help build at scale. Thank them, then hand off directly
to the LMHC partner.
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