Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides a safety net for millions of young adults with significant disabilities. Although most SSI participants do not work, many want to do so, potentially because working can provide a substantially higher income than SSI participation and improve quality of life. Policy analysts have speculated that efforts to help these individuals firmly establish themselves in the labor force before they apply for SSI might succeed. However, providing vocational services to people before they apply for SSI is challenging because it requires identifying in advance those who are likely to apply for SSI later. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report aims to inform those who study or develop programs offering employment services to young adults who are potential SSI participants. Employment and other programs seeking to effectively support potential SSI applicants could consider using the findings to improve their outreach and intake screening processes.

This National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) workshop will discuss strategies to make workplaces and workforce transition programs inclusive for youth with disabilities. These strategies ensure that outreach content on social media, physical workspaces, and documents given to youth employees are accessible for all and can be implemented without any programming experience. Additional strategies will cover actions that supervisors and coworkers can take to make youth employees with disabilities feel included. This NYEC virtual workshop will take place on July 11, 2024 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET and aims to give youth workforce specialists and employers tips on making sure youth employees with disabilities can succeed and feel included in their workplaces.

The University of Arizona’s Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities is hosting a webinar on July 16, 2024 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. MT, which will cover Pre-Employment Transition Services and highlight Work Base Learning Experiences (WBLEs). Speakers will discuss how the Center for Excellence in Disabilities is working collaboratively with Window Rock Unified School District to develop WBLEs for their transition-aged students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Led by Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago, Career Launch Chicago is an initiative working to develop youth apprenticeship programs that offer young people throughout the city opportunities to build in-demand skills and prepare for quality jobs in multiple high-growth industries, including advanced manufacturing, health care, and information technology. It also hopes to expand early college courses that are relevant to those pathways in target high schools and develop a work-based learning continuum that extends into earlier grades. Jobs for the Future published this profile which offers an in-depth look at the model Career Launch Chicago is developing, with examples of structures and approaches that other intermediaries and apprenticeship providers could apply to their own programs. It also offers recommendations of ways to scale youth apprenticeship by better integrating education and workforce systems.

Nonprofit organizations that offer youth development and young adult talent development services have increasingly centered the voices of the young people who are participating in their programs. They have accomplished this by infusing youth-centered practices into their programming and, more formally, creating leadership opportunities such as youth councils and alumni associations. This Jobs for the Future brief draws from interviews with program leaders and the young people they have hired to highlight how and why organizations have brought young people into paid staff positions, what the experience has been like for them, and the meaning they are making of their experience. This brief highlights four organizations in the Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) initiative. LEAP is a national initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation that aims to help youth and young adults ages 14–25 who have been involved in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems, parenting youth or youth who have experienced homelessness succeed in school and at work by building and expanding education and employment pathways.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA) improves services for people to find and keep jobs, and requires vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies to use some of the money they receive from the federal government (about $1 of every $7) for pre-employment transition services (pre-ETS) for students with disabilities. Youth with disabilities, including those who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), might need support for finding and training for jobs beyond what school traditionally offers. Students with disabilities often do not have as many opportunities for career development and training, could have trouble finding work because of their disability, and might come from lower-income families.

This Mathematica brief summarizes findings from a study examining how transition-age youth with disabilities receiving SSI may have been affected by WIOA and their access to pre-ETS.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief explores Addiction Recovery Care (ARC), a large-scale program in Kentucky combining residential clinical treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs) with employment services. ARC operates in several locations across the state, but is located primarily in rural, Appalachian areas hard-hit by the opioid crisis. This SUD residential treatment and recovery service is combined with employment services including job readiness training, internships, and online courses leading to a range of short-term occupational certifications. Employment services are provided in the later phases of the residential program when participants are relatively stabilized in terms of their SUD recovery. This brief offers recommendations for those implementing similar programs or that are interested in developing them.

The San Francisco Department of Child Support Services (SF DCSS) has piloted a voluntary program that explores an alternative to monthly cash payments, allowing parents to meet their child support obligations through agreed-upon, in-kind contributions. This approach acknowledges how some parents already contribute to their children and empowers them to flexibly address their families’ changing needs. It is modeled after the Yurok Tribe’s child support system, which allows parents to support their children in ways beyond monetary support, including providing diapers, fish, firewood, and child care. This Urban Institute fact sheet summarizes the implementation process of this pilot as an introduction for other counties that may be considering offering in-kind child support alternatives.