To promote a more integrated system of federal, state, local, and tribal services for disconnected youth, Congress authorized the Performance Partnership Pilots (P3) for Disconnected Youth initiative under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. The Act allowed up to ten grantee organizations and their partners, together called "pilots", to waive regulations, such as spending and performance requirements, and gain coordinated access to the discretionary funds of several federal agencies. As set out in the notice inviting applications, one purpose of P3 was to be a catalyst for systems change at the state or community level. Through the use of braiding or blending different program funds and using waivers to smooth requirements across these programs, Federal agencies sought to test whether the pilots could more effectively serve youth and improve outcomes for youth.

This brief provides an overview of the nine Cohort 1 pilots followed by a discussion of their work to sustain their P3 efforts and case studies of the two pilots that sustained systems change. It uses data from telephone interviews with eight pilots conducted in summer 2019, about a year after most pilots had concluded pilot activities.

In this paper, the P3 study team has placed pilots' efforts to sustain systems change along a continuum. At one end of this continuum, two pilots approached P3 as a platform to facilitate systems change in their communities. Next along the continuum is a pilot that had taken initial steps toward systems change by the end of its P3 grant. Next, two pilots reported that through P3 they had strengthened partnerships and broken down silos but that the systems for serving disconnected youth did not experience much change as a result of P3. Lastly, staff at three pilots reported that no systems change work occurred as part of their participation in P3. These pilots did not view P3 through a systems change lens and instead focused on programming for disconnected youth. The two pilots that identified systems change as a primary goal of their P3 pilots at the outset were able to sustain their efforts beyond the pilot.

Sustaining the systems change efforts of P3 pilots required explicit goals and planning, a strong commitment from leadership, and partners' willingness to innovate. The champions of these systems change efforts continued to seek ways to improve the system after the conclusion of their P3 pilots.