College and Career Readiness, Reimagined.

College & Career Readiness, Reimagined

Helping organizations move from disconnected college and career readiness activities to coherent developmental systems that create clearer pathways for students and families.

Pathways Forward Consulting works across education, higher education, workforce, community, and cross-sector ecosystems to assess what exists, identify where individuals lose clarity or navigation capacity, align programs and partners, and build practical strategies for stronger readiness outcomes.

Grounded in doctoral research, program evaluation, and the leadership of complex college and career readiness initiatives.

Explore the Pathways Forward Model

Start a CCR Systems Conversation

Your organization may already offer college visits, career exploration, dual enrollment, CTE, advising, mentoring, internships, financial aid support, family workshops, community partnerships, and employer engagement, BUT more activity does not automatically create greater readiness.

The question is whether those experiences work together intentionally so that students and families can understand their options, make informed decisions, take the next step, navigate transitions, and access support when they need it.

Here are five questions to ask:

1. Do people understand their options?

2. Are experiences intentionally sequenced over time?

3. Can individuals turn information into action?

4. Are programs and partners working toward shared outcomes?

5. Can you demonstrate growth in readiness—not simply participation?

Then if those questions are difficult to answer consistently, the challenge may not be a lack of programming. It may be a systems-alignment opportunity.

Readiness is not a checklist—it is a developmental pathway. Pathways Forward defines college and career readiness as a developmental process through which individuals build the knowledge, skills, agency, navigation capacity, and connections needed to understand their options, make informed decisions, transition successfully, and persist or adapt within education, training, career, and workforce pathways.

Readiness Develops Over Time

^{EXPLORE → UNDERSTAND → PLAN → DECIDE → NAVIGATE & PERSIST}

KNOWLEDGE — What do I know?

SKILLS — What can I do?

AGENCY — Can I act on what I know?

NAVIGATION — Can I turn an aspiration into a pathway?

CONNECTION — Who and what supports my pathway?

The Informed Navigator™

The goal is not simply admission, enrollment, or completion of a CCR activity. The goal is an individual who understands their strengths and options, knows what different pathways require, can make an informed choice, knows where to find support, takes appropriate action, and can adapt when circumstances or goals change.

Start With the Pathways Forward CCR Systems Review™

Before adding another program, understand the system you already have. The CCR Systems Review helps organizations examine how their current programs, people, partnerships, resources, communications, and measures work together to develop readiness.

The review can examine:
Developmental sequencing
Five readiness dimensions
Five system conditions
Existing CCR programs and activities
Student and family experience
Partner roles and handoffs
Access and participation
Readiness measurement
Organizational strengths, gaps and opportunities

Explore the Pathways Forward Model

Start a CCR Systems Conversation

CCR Systems Review™

Assess your current readiness ecosystem and identify strengths, gaps, and priorities.

CCR Strategy & Developmental Pathway Design

Build a coherent readiness strategy that develops intentionally across grades and stages.

CCR Ecosystem Alignment

Strengthen roles, relationships, and handoffs across education, community, higher education, training, workforce, employers, and families.

Measurement & Continuous Improvement

Move beyond activity counts toward evidence of readiness development, transition, and persistence.

Professional Learning & Capacity Building

Build common language, stronger practice and shared ownership among leaders, staff, families and partners

Implementation Advisory

Turn strategy into action through leadership advising, facilitation, implementation support, and continuous improvement.

K-12

Building developmental CCR systems from early exploration through transition.

Higher Education Institutions & Systems

Strengthening pipelines, transition, persistence, and connections with K–12 and the workforce.

State Agencies & System Offices

Designing scalable readiness strategies, cross-agency alignment, and measurable initiatives.

Community-Based Organizations

Clarifying organizational roles within the broader readiness ecosystem.

Workforce Organizations & Employers

Connecting education, career exploration, experiential learning and workforce pathways earlier.

Foundations & Philanthropy

Strengthening initiative design, grantee alignment, systems strategy, and measurement.

Regional & Cross-Sector Partnerships

Creating shared frameworks, roles, handoffs and outcomes across institutions.

If your organization is investing in college and career readiness but still sees fragmentation, unclear pathways, uneven access, late-stage decision-making, disconnected partnerships, or difficulty demonstrating impact, a Pathways Forward CCR Systems Conversation can help you identify where to begin.

Start with a 30-minute free conversation. We'll explore:

What already exists.
Where the system may be losing coherence.
What students and families are experiencing.
What leadership needs to understand next.

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Meet Dr. Christina Lapierre

CCR Strategist • Systems Leader • Researcher

Founder of Pathways Forward Consulting

Dr. Christina M. Lapierre works at the intersection of education, workforce, research, strategy, and systems implementation. Her experience spans K–12 education, higher education, community organizations, state agencies, workforce partnerships, families, and large-scale federally funded initiatives.

As the former State Grant Director of a $25.8 million U.S. Department of Education GEAR UP initiative, she led complex systems involving program strategy, fiscal stewardship, partnerships, evaluation, student supports, and postsecondary transition.

Her doctoral research examined how students develop the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate postsecondary opportunities.

That research—combined with more than two decades of work alongside students, families, and educational systems—became part of the foundation for the Pathways Forward approach.