Youth can face many challenges as they transition to living independently as adults. For youth in foster care, overcoming obstacles may require additional support and skills to be self-reliant. Caseworkers and child welfare professionals assist youth with securing employment, secondary education, housing, financial literacy, and other needs. However, additional support is needed to provide encouragement and stability as youth transition to adulthood. Support systems consisting of helpful, stable adults reinforce the goal of self-sufficiency and give youth a sense of community. This podcast explores how Alternative Family successfully creates effective support systems for youth in foster care which focuses on a highly individualized social support model with a goal of safety, stability, and well-being.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration is soliciting applications for the agency’s Workforce Pathways for Youth grant program. This grant program, operated by national out-of-school time (OST) organizations, will expand workforce development activities in OST organizations across the country that serve youth living in rural areas during non-school hours. The goals of the grant program are to:

1) expand age-appropriate workforce readiness programming through national OST organizations and their state or locally-operated affiliate organizations and ultimately scale up these efforts;
2) promote increased alignment between OST organizations, workforce development programs, and school systems; and
3) coordinate across workforce development, schools, and OST in order to provide work-based learning experiences, occupational skills training, and unsubsidized employment placements to increase opportunities for youth, particularly those at risk of not completing their high school education, to gain the skills needed to be successful in post-secondary education and employment.

Closing date for application submissions is May 19, 2023.

Being mentored helps young people, particularly young people at risk, stay healthy and safe. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic challenged traditional strategies for engaging youth and prompted mentoring models to evolve. This report explores how both mentoring programs and mentors adapted to social distancing guidelines during the pandemic. It addresses research questions related to the social-emotional effects of social isolation and virtual learning and explores the benefits and challenges of using virtual mentoring models. The report also offers recommendations aimed at helping mentoring programs better serve youth from a distance.

Youth apprenticeships are structured, work-based learning opportunities that offer young people, particularly young people of color and those from low-income households, the opportunity to learn specialized skills that they can use throughout their career. This blogpost outlines four key characteristics of youth apprenticeships, as identified by the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA). It also lists the ways that PAYA works with partners who follow a set of five guiding principles to deliver high-quality youth apprenticeship opportunities. Resources on how youth apprenticeships benefit young people, communities, and industries are included.

Many young adults, ages 18 to 25, have earnings that are typically low at this stage of their lives, and often have trouble meeting basic needs while facing systemic barriers and discrimination that exclude them from crucial resources and supports. Policies and programs, as well as the systems that administer them, can help young adults both meet their basic needs and build a stronger foundation for a healthy and fulfilling future. This report presents the case for a guaranteed income to support young adults.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation will host a webinar on March 16, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET, to help youth justice staff better serve Native American youth involved in the justice system. The webinar will address the reasons behind the higher risk of system involvement for Native American youth, the need for support and treatment for historical, intergenerational, and contemporary trauma, and the importance of identifying and working with Native nations. Participants will learn about a successful Native nation diversion program and have the opportunity to request more information on supporting Native youth.

Congress established the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood, known as Chafee, in 1999. Chafee provides support to assist young adults transitioning out of the foster care system until they turn 23 years old, the same age when a young person who has experienced foster care stops receiving any federal support from the child welfare system. Chafee was one of the first pieces of legislation to call attention to the distinct needs of young people transitioning out of the foster care system and sheds light on the shortage of federal investments dedicated to this critical transition when many young adults struggle with unemployment, homelessness, and other challenges. This blogpost presents four lessons that could help Chafee better prepare transition-age young people for stability and success in adulthood.

A program model offers a visual roadmap that illustrates the intended destination of a program and identifies how practitioners can get there. Program models describe the key elements of an intervention, including what it takes to implement it, the intended results it should have in the short and longer term, and any external factors that might influence implementation. Multiple groups can use a program model for different purposes, including practitioners, program or curriculum developers, policy makers, and researchers. Program models can serve as useful tools for these audiences throughout a program’s lifecycle, including to support planning, monitoring, and/or evaluating the program. This tip sheet describes for practitioners what a program model is, how one can be used, and some examples of how to use a program model in the context of a specific youth program. It includes a checklist that guides practitioners through planning, monitoring, and evaluating a program.

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued the YouthBuild Funding Opportunity Announcement, which will award grants on a competitive basis to organizations providing pre-apprenticeship services that support education, occupational skills training, and employment services to opportunity youth, ages 16 to 24. YouthBuild supports youth who left high school prior to graduation that also have other risk factors, including being an adjudicated youth, youth aging out of foster care, youth with disabilities, migrant farmworker youth, youth experiencing housing instability, and other disadvantaged youth populations. The YouthBuild program model prepares participants for quality jobs in a variety of careers, including infrastructure, and contains wraparound services such as mentoring, trauma-informed care, personal counseling, and employment – all key strategies for addressing community violence.

Applications are due by February 7, 2023, no later than 11:59 p.m. ET.

The Works Wonders^® curriculum aims to connect young people in foster care with careers that interest them. Under the Works Wonders model, staff members customize learning plans and recruit local companies to employ older youth with foster care experience. Typical programming includes coursework, mentoring, job shadowing, paid internships, and career guidance. This blogpost examines the adaptation and expansion of the Work Wonders model at Monroe Harding (a Nashville-based nonprofit) in Tennessee and Foster Success (a start­up business training program) in Indiana to better serve their local youth.