The U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration invites workforce communities to nominate themselves to be a part of the Youth Systems Building Academy (YSBA). YSBA will provide local workforce systems and their community partners with targeted and individualized training and technical assistance to explore, design, test, implement, or scale system-level approaches to engage and support young people in the workforce including:

• Improving youth employment opportunities and outcomes.
• Increasing understanding of equitable policies and practices for youth career pathways and what a quality job means for young workers.
• Aligning local systems policies, resources, and programming, including among DOL-funded programs and investments and across other Federal, state, local and philanthropic funded investments.
• Using data to inform system improvements, including promoting a better understanding of how to use and share data to ensure equitable access and outcomes for youth served.
• Increasing knowledge and access to resources related to youth workforce professional development and building youth practitioners’ skills related to positive youth development and trauma-informed principles.
• Increasing awareness of the public workforce system for youth and young adults by engaging youth and including youth voice in messaging, recruitment, and engagement and other programmatic decision making.

Applications are due before Friday, January 13, 2023, 5:00 p.m. ET.

This four-part series is designed to help workforce development practitioners understand the neuroscience behind trauma and resilience and receive actionable steps to mitigate and manage toxic stress and trauma to cultivate a culture of resiliency for staff and organizations. The four guides are entitled: The Brain Science of Trauma & Resilience; Trauma in Workforce Development; Responding to Trauma Triggering in Real Time; and Cultivating a Culture of Resiliency in Organizations.

Youth involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems — sometimes referred to as crossover, dually-involved, dually-adjudicated, or dual-system youth — require a special focus. An intentional approach is needed because involvement in both systems is associated with higher risks for mental health, educational, and vocational challenges, higher rates of recidivism, longer stays in detention, and poorer placement stability and permanency outcomes. This blogpost illustrates the Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM) to address the needs of this population. It outlines the three phases of implementing the CYPM by identifying policies, programs, and practices that will enhance how a community supports crossover youth. More than 120 counties in 23 states have implemented or are in the process of implementing the CYPM as of 2022; the blogpost references reports on lessons learned in using this approach in Harris County, Texas, eastern Idaho, and Los Angeles County, California.

This report provides a new annual snapshot of the direct care workforce, including its demographics, occupational roles, job quality challenges, and projected job openings. It also provides detailed overviews of three segments of this workforce: home care workers, residential care aides, and nursing assistants in nursing homes.

Apprenticeships are structured work-based training programs that combine classroom instruction with on-the-job learning provided by a mentor at the employer’s worksite. The U.S. Department of Labor under the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) sponsored an evaluation to build evidence about the effectiveness of registered apprenticeship for apprentices and employers and generate lessons for developing and operating apprenticeship programs, particularly in nontraditional occupations (occupations not related to construction). This report describes the characteristics, program experiences (e.g., occupation, wage progression), and post-program employment and earnings outcomes of participants in an AAI-supported apprenticeship or pre-apprenticeship program.

There have been over a million drug overdose deaths in the United States since 1999. While this crisis is national in scope, there is considerable variation by both geography and subpopulation. One area of interest is in how changes in the labor market may be connected to increases in addiction and “deaths of despair” and, at the same time, how rising rates of drug use may be lowering overall labor force participation. This webinar recording from the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty includes presentations on trends in the U.S. opioid crisis and overdose cases related to other drugs. The presenters also examined how differences in state-level policy responses to the crisis may be leading to different labor market outcomes, and how automation and other changes in manufacturing employment may be connected to increases in working-age mortality.

In 2018, change agents within the Camden County (New Jersey) Department of Corrections introduced a five-pronged community engagement strategy to reduce the use of jail and improve reentry outcomes for people released from incarceration. Central to this strategy are the County’s NuEntry Opportunity Specialists, previously incarcerated individuals who serve as credible messengers to people released from incarceration and who work to reduce the stigma of incarceration through community education and outreach. This case study describes Camden County’s community engagement strategy and examines its implementation and reported impact. Lessons and recommendations derived from implementation of the county’s community engagement strategy and its sustainability efforts are also discussed.

Video recordings of the plenary and concurrent breakout sessions are now available for the Virtual Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS) 2022, convened by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, held June 1 - 3, 2022. The conference recordings include sessions on the following topics:

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Programs, Policies, and Populations
• Employment and Mobility in the Labor Market
• Youth Well-Being and the Transition to Adulthood
• Strengthening Families, Fatherhood, Marriages, and Relationships
• Evaluating Social Programs, Building Evidence, and Using Data
• Approaches to Alleviate Poverty and Expand Opportunity

This white paper uses a novel dataset from CareerWise Colorado, one of the U.S.'s most widely cited youth apprenticeship models. During the program, CareerWise students split their time between a traditional classroom and the workplace, allowing apprentices to earn a wage while accessing meaningful work experience and debt-free college credits. The paper presents research findings on the extent to which CareerWise apprentices achieve the program’s stated goal of serving as an “Options Multiplier” – they transition on to postsecondary education, employment, or both. Supportive supervisors, job match, industry type, and Registered Apprenticeship status all have a significant impact on retention and completion. Better understanding of these factors means that employers can structure programs that lead to apprentice success, teaching students the skills they need for a good job and generating a high return on investment for employers.

Young adults facing homelessness are a growing demographic in need of greater economic stability—before the COVID-19 pandemic, one in ten young people experienced homelessness annually. In response to that need, MDRC and Covenant House entered into a learning partnership to explore the perspectives and experiences of those young people as they navigate the workforce amid a changing and often precarious labor market. (Covenant House is a nonprofit organization which provides housing and supportive services for young people facing homelessness and survivors of human trafficking.) Through surveys and interviews, the study team sought to learn about young people’s aspirations, reflect on their strengths and obstacles, and identify which supports they need as they navigate the workforce. The research findings shared in this brief will be used to help Covenant House develop new strategies to address youth employment needs.