This case statement highlights the American Job Center in Central Pennsylvania (PA CareerLink®), which provides employment services to TANF (through the Employment Advancement Retention Network or EARN) and WIOA clients. With support from specialized staff at each step of the job seeking process, clients can access Job Connections workshops, assistance from job developers, and employer engagement opportunities. This PA CareerLink® also offers adult basic education services and a designated van to provide transportation assistance, among other services, for EARN clients.

Sections of the brief discuss joint service delivery, resource sharing, shared learning, and managing collaborative activities. Readers may also access links to the state TANF plan and funding information for more context and resources. This brief is part of the TANF Works! TANF/WIOA Collaboration Series, through which the Office of Family Assistance’s Integrating Innovative Employment and Economic Stability Strategies (IIEESS) initiative seeks to highlight innovative coordination strategies of TANF and WIOA programs to serve low-income or vulnerable populations.

An evaluation of a randomized control trial in Boston found significant decreases in criminal charges and arraignments for youth who participate in Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs), particularly for African American and Latino males. These declines may be the result of improved social and emotional skills that the employment programs foster by giving participants a chance to learn healthy conflict and stress management. Youth also reported higher academic and career aspirations, better job skills, and more cognizance of future plans and goals, an effect which was pronounced for younger members and members of color.

This report from MDRC evaluates the implementation and impacts of New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program, the nation's largest of its kind. It examines both the implementation of the program and its long- and short-term impacts on youth earnings, employment, and education. The findings are presented, and the tensions that exist for a summer-only program with long-term goals for youth are discussed.

This report by the National Fund for Workforce Solutions documents emerging practices from the National Fund’s Young Adult (YA) work and identifies an ongoing need for technical assistance in designing and implementing YA models. Specifically, this report looks at the history of YA sectoral work and highlights replicable lessons learned and recommended practices that can be used by organizations to address unemployment and underemployment. The report outlines both challenges and opportunities in the YA sectoral field, including a critical need for dedicated funding to: cover planning and implementation, ensure that YA programs include proven approaches to move lower-skilled young adults along supportive pathways to successful employment, address raising the floor for young adults already working in entry- and low-level jobs, and continue the role of the Federal Government in WIOA rollout.

The Youth Summer Jobs Community of Practice from WorkforceGPS provides an online platform for workforce professionals, employers, and other stakeholders to learn and share information about summer employment experiences and opportunities. The website includes blog posts, discussions, and a resource library.

This report prepared for the City of Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board and the Economic and Workforce Development Department by California State University Northridge, provides an evaluation of a summer youth employment program called “Hire LA’s Youth”. Findings and recommendations are provided.

Youth summer jobs programs have experienced a resurgence of interest and investment since the Great Recession, driven by concerns about high unemployment rates among young people, particularly those who are low-income, black, or Hispanic. Recent research points to summer jobs programs as a positive lever for change that can reduce violence, incarceration, and mortality, and improve academic outcomes; but the research has not yet linked summer jobs programs to improved employment outcomes. On July 14, 2016, the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program hosted an event that explored core elements associated with high-performing programs and offered recommendations to strengthen summer jobs programs. The Brookings website includes resources from that event.

This blog post from the Office of Public and Indian Housing highlights the Summer Opportunity Project, a federal interagency initiative to connect youth with employment and education in communities across the United States. The post provides success stories from youth around the country and notes how the Summer Opportunity Project has helped them thrive.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics released an economic news release on the summer youth labor force for the summer of 2014. From April to July 2014, the number of employed youth 16 to 24 years old increased by 2.1 million to 20.1 million. The share of young people employed in July was 51.9 percent. Unemployment among youth rose by 913,000 from April to July 2014, compared with an increase of 692,000 during the same months in 2013.

The Administration for Children and Families' Office of Family Assistance issued a "Dear Colleague" letter to their TANF program stakeholders. The letter highlights a Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) issued on March 26, 2015 by the Employment and Training Administration at the Department of Labor (DOL). The TEGL explains the broad vision for the youth services included in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Additionally, it references another letter jointly issued by DOL, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in April 2014 that encouraged youth providers and Public Housing Agencies to develop summer programs for at-risk and low-income youth. This "Dear Colleague" letter reinforces ACF's support for the use of TANF resources to strengthen summer youth employment programs. These programs provide employment, education, and skills like financial literacy and time management.