Key Focus Areas – Pathways to Education

Strengthening Our Foundation through the Impact Plan

In 2024, we launched an ambitious Impact Plan to assess our current program model and guide future direction. This work included three major components: a global environmental scan, a market analysis, and a national Program Review. Together, these initiatives provided a clear evidence base to inform our strategic decisions and deepen our impact in the coming years.

The environmental scan explored how similar organizations around the world have scaled their programs while staying rooted in local impact. Findings confirmed that authentic growth requires trust in local communities, strong cross-sector partnerships, and a national infrastructure that enables local delivery.

The market analysis provided a picture of how many students across Canada could realistically be served by the traditional Pathways Program. Informed by the 2021 Census data, historical program data, and available geographic data, results showed that as of 2024 we are reaching 51-57% of the youth in Canada who could benefit from our program. Results also highlighted areas of opportunity where unmet need remains, including potential to scale in existing program locations or opportunities to expand into currently unreached communities across the country. A follow-up analysis next year will leverage 2026 Census data, more recent program enrolment data, and a more tailored approach that incorporates Quebec’s unique education system.

The goal of the Program Review was to better understand the current challenges and unique strengths of the young people and communities we serve. In our discussions with partners, youth, and families, three themes came through consistently. Students need: 1) stronger academic support, 2) better mental health resources, and 3) greater financial stability.

Keep reading for a deeper dive into what we heard from communities during the Program Review and how we’re using these findings to deepen our impact and inform our new strategic direction.

Understanding Community Needs: Findings from the Program Review

Our inaugural Program Review set out to understand how the needs of young people have changed, and how we must evolve to meet them. We also wanted to identify and prioritize opportunities to collaborate with our Program Partners on improving supports as students transition to and from high school. The process involved exploring both qualitative and quantitative findings to shed light on the needs of Pathways students and the impact the program has on the lives of young people, families, and communities.

Over four months, we held 96 focus groups with 442 participants across Pathways locations, including 251 students, 131 staff members, 27 alumni, and 33 parents and caregivers.

Their insights painted a vivid picture of how much has changed since the pandemic. Academic challenges are deepening, mental health needs are growing, and families are facing more financial stress than ever before.

Young people voiced the importance of one-on-one support and shared how Pathways staff often serve as some of the only trusted adults in their lives. Youth also expressed a desire to have a greater voice in shaping the services and supports they receive, which reinforces our belief that long-term impact is only possible when solutions are built alongside youth and their communities.

This feedback is already informing the next phase of our work.

While the academic and financial needs of youth will continue to be core to our program, we know that to be truly effective today, we must increase our support of their social and emotional well-being.

We identified several successful, community-led initiatives already happening across Pathways locations. Some are offering programming focused on emotional regulation and healthy relationships. Others are focused on creating strong partnerships with community organizations to provide wraparound supports and referrals to other mental health resources. In many locations, youth are actively involved in creating solutions to support their peers and community.

Looking ahead, we are exploring new ways to both strengthen and test the efficacy of this area of support across all 31 Pathways locations. We are building on existing local efforts by increasing knowledge-sharing of effective strategies across locations and working with youth and partners to co-create meaningful supports that meet their needs.

These learnings are also reshaping how we define success. Learn more about our updated Performance Measurement Framework below.

A New Framework for Measuring Impact

Measuring the impact of the Pathways Program has always been central to our work to ensure we are continually meeting the needs of students.

Informed in part by findings from the Program Review, we are in the process of updating our Performance Measurement Framework to better reflect what success looks like today.

The new framework will identify short-, medium- and long-term outcomes that the Pathways Program contributes to, serving as the foundation for a more comprehensive story of the program’s success. Going beyond a focus on graduation rates, it captures outcomes that are both quantitative and qualitative in nature, including socio-emotional skills, competencies such as resilience, sense of belonging and students’ overall experience in the program. It will also start the conversation around longer-term outcomes beyond high school graduation, such as civic engagement and labour market success.

In addition, the framework will allow us to assess how outcomes vary for youth with different identities and lived experiences. Identifying a core set of outcomes and associated indicators while providing flexibility for local adaptation will ensure the data we collect is both meaningful and manageable for our partners.

We know that what sets the Pathways Program apart is the responsive, community-informed approach grounded in evidence and lived experience. This updated framework will build on two decades of success by allowing us to further understand the true value of the program and introduce new ways to capture the broader range of needs that shape student success today.

Charting our Future Strategic Direction

Our deep engagement efforts over the past year have confirmed that the needs of young people are growing more complex. Challenges related to mental health, financial hardship, and academic success are deeply interconnected. Addressing them requires a coordinated approach that allows for flexibility and responsiveness at the community level. At the same time, we know we must maintain consistency and quality across the national network.

To prepare for these challenges and opportunities ahead, we’re charting a new organizational strategic direction to deepen our impact and ensure we remain responsive, resilient, and relevant in the coming years.

In 2024, we kicked off a strategic planning effort that was grounded in collaboration. We brought together Program Partners, youth voices, and industry experts to examine trends and shape a shared understanding for what’s next. Each stakeholder group shared insights that were vital in identifying the emerging needs of youth and the conditions required to support their success in this evolving social, economic, and political landscape.

What emerged is a need for constant adaptation, with a strong focus on partnership and collective impact.

We are currently finalizing a new, community-informed Strategic Plan that will allow us to respond to this changing external environment while staying grounded in what youth and communities tell us they need. The multi-year plan sets out a clear commitment to continuous learning through a cycle of designing, testing, evaluating, and iterating that will continue to inform our work and deepen our impact. It also affirms our commitment to embedding equity in every aspect of our work to ensure our organization reflects the communities we serve.

A full version of the Strategic Plan will be available later this year. It will include specific actions we are taking to build a stronger, more agile organization that is prepared to meet the needs of youth today and into the future.

A New Platform to Power Program Efficiency

Last year, we took a major step forward in modernizing our operations with the release of a new platform designed to support the management and delivery of program services. The platform is called Connex, a name suggested by a program staff member that reflects both our collaborative culture and the connections at the heart of the program. At the time of publication, Connex is being piloted at 11 of our 31 Pathways locations to support student registration, with full deployment planned across all partner locations in the next two years.

Connex is being developed in-house to respond to real, on-the-ground requirements gathered directly from Program Partner staff. It addresses core frontline functions in areas where staff previously had to navigate time-consuming manual processes, such as student registration and caseload assignment.

What makes Connex unique is how closely it is shaped by the people who use it and those who will benefit from it. Program staff play a central role in its design, defining ongoing requirements and validating current and upcoming features that reflect the realities of their day-to-day work. It is also being developed by team members who are Pathways alumni, and tested by current students and graduates to ensure the platform reflects real youth needs.

This multi-year project represents Pathways’ approach to innovation: listen to the people closest to the work and co-create tools that make their jobs easier and their impact greater. As we prepare to scale Connex across all Pathways locations in the next two years, the proprietary platform is expected to deliver a significant reallocation of staff time from manual administrative work to direct student support. The system will reduce risks related to data security and improve the quality of information we collect. With a more intuitive design experience for staff, Connex is also expected to reduce onboarding time and increase consistency in reporting.

Like the other initiatives outlined in this report, Connex is grounded in a long-term commitment to deeper impact, data-informed decision-making, and stronger alignment with evolving community needs.