Findings from the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH): Conditions of Youth at Age 19

The "CalYOUTH Wave 2 Youth Survey", conducted when the young people participating in CalYOUTH were 19 years old, follows up on a survey of the same young people when they were approaching the age of majority in California's foster care system. More than 80 percent of the youth who took part in the baseline interviews participated in the Wave 2 survey. The report provides the most comprehensive view to date of young adults making the transition to adulthood from foster care in California, highlighting differences between young people participating in extended foster care and young people who had left care. The report provides feedback for all parties interested in improving youth's transitions from foster care to adulthood

Hometown Prosperity: Increasing Opportunity for DC's Low-Income Working Families

Describes how Washington, D.C.'s poor working families have not benefited from the district's economic growth; identifies the key reasons; and recommends investing more in education and training, local workforce development, and income and work supports

Pathway to Successful Young Adulthood

The Pathway to Successful Young Adulthood assembles a wealth of findings from research, practice, theory, and policy about what it takes to improve the lives of children, youth and families, particularly those living in tough neighborhoods. By laying out a comprehensive, coherent array of actions, the Pathway informs efforts to improve community conditions within supportive policy and funding contexts. The Pathways framework does not promote a single formula or program. Rather, our emphasis is on acting strategically across disciplines, systems, and jurisdictions to increase the number of young people who make a successful transition to young adulthood. The Pathway provides a starting point to guide choices made by community coalitions, services providers, researchers, funders, and policymakers to achieve desired outcomes for young people and their families

Improving Our Response to Workforce Needs: Recommendations for Reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA)

The Chicago Jobs Council (CJC) supports the concept of a system where job seekers of all skill levels and incomes as well as employers of all sizes and industry types can get the workforce development assistance they need. Developing public institutions that are free of categorical eligibility requirements and are alternatively driven by assessment of need is a long-term vision we promote. However, in the first couple of years of Workforce Investment Act (WIA) implementation, we have seen how the nation's most needy job seekers were negatively affected by the mandate that local areas create "universal access" without the necessary resources or capacity to do so. The lack of unified planning by federal and state agencies, the existence of misaligned program requirements and performance measures, entrenchment of state agencies, and significant budget crises at the state level have put WIA's universal access goal out of reach. Rather than supporting effective strategies that help job seekers with the fewest skills access career path employment and supporting needs of employers for qualified workers, time and funds have instead been poured into developing the infrastructure for local one stop systems that often do not meet their needs. Through reauthorization, we urge our congressional leaders to refocus WIA to achieve four primary goals: - Stable, quality employment for the chronically unemployed - Job advancement for low-wage adult workers entering the labor market - Skill attainment by low-income adults with limited education - Access to work experience, literacy and English as a Second Language instruction, high school or General Equivalency Degree (GED) completion, and post secondary education for low-income youth Employers will benefit equally from this refocusing. As baby boomers begin retiring and the global economy continues to produce widening skills and wage gaps, the public workforce development system must address the large population with limited academic, technological and vocational skills. Despite a downward-turned economy, many employers in several sectors such as health care and manufacturing report job openings that have gone unfilled because of a dearth of qualified candidates

A Developmental Perspective on College & Workplace Readiness

Reviews research on and identifies the physical, psychological, social, cognitive, and spiritual competencies high school graduates need to transition into college, the workplace, and adulthood. Includes strategies for meeting disadvantaged youths' needs

Relative Strength

We heard a lot during the 2000 presidential campaign about the importance of working families. Each party has done its best to demonstrate that it will be the better friend to these households. Ironically, the nation's workforce development policies have not only not paid much attention to families, but they have made it considerably more difficult to implement family-oriented employment programs. Relative Strength attempts to shed some light on why developing such programs is so challenging, how some organizations have managed to do it, and how their experiences can inform the field. We do not expect, nor would we recommend, that the employment field abandon its focus on individuals in favor of families. But it does seem that there is a need and considerable interest in undertaking such efforts if more flexible workforce development policies can be developed

Leave No Youth Behind: Opportunities for Congress to Reach Disconnected Youth

This report discusses six programs being considered by the 108th Congress for reauthorization, focusing on policies designed to assist disconnected and at-risk youth. The review seeks to identify how the programs do or do not consider at-risk or disconnected youth ad how such programs might be improved. After an introduction by Alan Houseman, six papers include: "The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act and Disconnected Youth" (Cynthia G. Brown and Andy Hartman); "The Higher Education Act and Disconnected Youth" (Thomas R. Wolanin); "The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Disconnected Youth" (Cynthia G Brown and Jennifer Mezey); "The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act and Disconnected Youth" (Bob Reeg); "The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program and Disconnected Youth" (Jodie Levin-Epstein); and "The Workforce Investment Act and Disconnected Youth" (Nisha Patel and Steve Savner)

Search for Advocacy: A measure of local attentiveness to homelessness

From urban capitals to rural countryside, and every locality in between, homelessness is a national phenomenon that affects every community. Each locality responds to it differently through the variety of homeless programs and services it offers. By doing such, each locality displays a certain level of attentiveness to their homeless population. This article explores how 10 small southeastern cities respond to their local homelessness and seeks to compare the homeless attentiveness of Bowling Green, Kentucky to similar localities. An evaluative measure of municipal attentiveness based on a range of homelessness program areas is used to score each city’s response to its homelessness. A non-parametric test finds that there is not a significant difference in the attentiveness of evaluated localities, and in turn concludes that Bowling Green’s attentiveness to its homelessness is not significantly less than that of the other cities. However, an analysis of the descriptive statistics reveal the strengths and weaknesses of Bowling Green’s response to homelessness, identifying prevention and emergency services as areas needing more attention. This research and its following discussion serve as a starting point for the ten localities examined, as well as other similar localities, to examine their own response to local homelessness

Factors Contributing to Successful Employment Outcomes for Individuals Who Are Hard-of-Hearing

This study examined the relationship between demographic variables (gender, race and ethnicity, age, level of education, and secondary disability), state-federal vocational rehabilitation (VR) services, and VR employment outcomes among individuals who are hard-of-hearing. This study also explored what VR services contribute to employment outcomes for individuals who are hard-of-hearing. Data from The U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Service Administration Case Service Report (RSA-911) FY 2014 was used to focus on individuals who are hard-of-hearing. Logistic regression, Chi-square, and Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) analyses were used to analyze the RSA-911 dataset

Becoming Adults: One-Year Impact Findings from the Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation

Young adults with histories of foster care or juvenile justice custody experience poor outcomes across a number of domains, on average, relative to their peers. While government funding for services targeting these groups of young people has increased in recent years, research on the effectiveness of such services is limited, and few of the programs that have been rigorously tested have been found to improve outcomes. The Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation is testing whether the Transitional Living program, operated by the social service organization Youth Villages, makes a difference in the lives of young people with histories of foster care or juvenile justice custody. The program, which was renamed "YVLifeSet" in April 2015, is intended to help these young people make a successful transition to adulthood by providing intensive, individualized, and clinically focused case management, support, and counseling