Approximately 2.8 million individuals between the ages of 16-24 are disconnected from both school and work. The National League of Cities put together this action kit to help municipal leaders facilitate discussions in their communities on how to reengage disconnected youth. This action kit includes strategies for convening stakeholders, promoting educational achievement, developing workforce connections, supporting youth in transition, and building a citywide system for reengaging youth.

The rate of men’s participation in the workforce has been declining for decades, especially among men ages 25-54. This report from the Brookings Institution analyzes the reasons for this decline and its consequences. Some of the reasons for the decline include a decrease in the availability of low-skill manufacturing jobs due to automation, poor health, and the availability of disability insurance. Reversing this decline will require investment in education and training to increase the skills of the labor force to meet employer demand. The authors also recommend better adjustment assistance for workers in declining fields and providing more flexibility for workers with disabilities and family care responsibilities.

Under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), public workforce programs were encouraged to make stronger partnerships with TANF. In this report, the Center on Law and Social Policy detailed the findings of a survey conducted in 2016 on the degree of coordination between TANF and workforce programs during the early implementation of WIOA. According to the survey results, state officials were very interested in improving coordination between WIOA and TANF, but only modest changes had taken place. The coordination strategies that states used most often were shared job resource rooms and braided funding, and they used team case management least often.

For people with opioid use disorder, a buprenorphine prescription can improve outcomes related to staying in drug treatment, involvement in the justice system, and mortality. This Urban Institute Report analyzes how the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act affected access to buprenorphine among low-income individuals. For the 32 states that expanded Medicaid, the number of buprenorphine prescriptions per enrollee increased 70%. However, this increase may still not meet the demand for buprenorphine due to persistent capacity shortages. The report also includes state-by-state data on total Medicaid spending on buprenorphine.

Mathematica Policy Research issued three new briefs to document lessons learned from implementing the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which educates youth on abstinence and contraception. These briefs are part of a multi-component evaluation on PREP that Mathematica is conducting for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. One brief focuses on a teen pregnancy prevention program in rural Kentucky, another details a boys-only teen pregnancy prevention program in Iowa, and the third brief examines how California, Maine, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina developed infrastructure to support PREP programming. Each brief includes findings on how PREP implementation differed at each site.

This report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce offers five ways to better integrate education and workforce data to improve career pathways for students. Those five ways include: using education projections, business expansion, and workforce quality tools; aligning education programs with labor market demand; aligning curriculum with workforce requirements; providing counseling and career pathways tools for advisors; and conducting job placement and skills gap analyses. Each section provides examples of how states have used the five ways to improve education and employment outcomes for students completing a career pathway.

This journal article estimates how three large sectoral employment programs in New York City affected the employment and earnings of participants. These Sector-Focused Career Centers (SFCCs) target occupations that offer competitive wages of at least $10 per hour, full-time jobs, advancement opportunities for workers, and high growth potential for businesses. Participants receive a variety of services, including resume review, interview skills development, job search assistance, and career advice. Results showed gains in employment levels and earnings for participants, and participants who received industry-specific training had the greatest earnings gains.

This report from the Department of Labor provides an overview of the evidence behind effective job training programs for youth and adults. For adults, the evidence supports post-secondary education related to an in-demand field, employer engagement, and job training that is closely related to a real job or occupation. There is less evidence on what works for youth, but early experience to career and higher education information and work experience can be beneficial. The report concludes with next steps to expand what works and fill the gaps in evidence.

This brief from the Urban Institute provides a framework for why workforce programs and employers must engage with one another. First, the brief presents the challenges that workforce programs may face when engaging employers. Employers may not see the value in partnering with workforce programs or may be wary of working with the government or nonprofits. Then, the brief discusses why employers become involved in workforce programs, why workforce programs engage employers, and how employers are involved in workforce programs. Employers can play a variety of roles in a workforce program, such as oversight, program design, program delivery, recruitment and hiring, and financial or in-kind resources. The report concludes by describing how employers can become partners with workforce programs under WIOA.

The Aspen Institute’s Workforce Strategies Initiative created this playbook to document lessons learned from the Communities that Work Partnership project. Seven regional teams were selected to participate in this project, which included workforce development leaders and representatives from private industry. Each team collaborated to advance a variety of industry-led workforce development strategies. The playbook includes information on building partnerships, collecting labor market information, business engagement and skills development, and additional strategies for improving the talent pipeline. Each play describes the strategy, includes an example of a site that used that strategy, and provides action steps for applying the strategy in regions.