The Youth Villages program sought an independent evaluation of its Transitional Living program — now known as “YVLifeSet” — which is one example of an “independent living” program. The Transitional Living program aims to help young men and women make the transition to adulthood by providing intensive, individualized, and clinically focused case management, support, and counseling. The evaluation used a rigorous random assignment design in which study sample members were assigned at random to either a program group that was offered the Transitional Living program services or to a control group that was not offered those services. The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the evaluation, which was led by MDRC in concert with Mark Courtney of the University of Chicago.

This third major report in the evaluation builds on the one-year findings and assesses the estimated two-year impacts of the Transitional Living program using administrative data for three outcome domains: education, employment and earnings, and criminal involvement. The report also presents information on the costs of operating the Transitional Living program. (Edited author executive summary)