The Center for Excellence in Family-Finding, Engagement and Support launched a series of webinars that are dedicated to promoting the transformative work happening in California towards cultivating a kin-first culture in child welfare. The Center will host a webinar on January 9, 2024 from 10:00 a.m. to 12 p.m. PT where panelists will share their unique perspectives and insights on the Kin-First philosophy. The webinar will delve into the power of Kin-First Culture and the transformative programs that are redefining family connections. This session will shed light on how agencies can form meaningful partnerships, helping children and youth stay connected with their family, extended family, and community.

CareerOneStop is a comprehensive career, education, and job search website. It also offers GetMyFuture, a specialized website for youth and young adults ages 14-24, where tools and information are available to help youth find information to achieve their employment and career goals. This Workforce GPS webinar is on January 18, 2024 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET and will offer participants tools and resources to help youth explore career ideas, gain insight into their work values and interests, learn about effective resume writing, job search methods, and more. Presenters will also demonstrate how to save career assessments and job searches, and how youth can share them with their counselors.

From its design, apprenticeship was meant to be a pathway for youth to gain skills and employment. However, with time, the system has morphed and the typical apprentice in California is closer to the age of 30 than to 16. Apprenticeship has largely ceased to be a pathway of choice for young people to access careers and has instead turned into an opportunity that’s only pursued after other roads have turned into dead ends. This New America blogpost looks at California’s Master Plan for Career Education. This plan will provide an opportunity for the state to make clear what it means for apprenticeship to serve young people in California.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently announced new webinars as part of its series focused on youth mental health. The series seeks to respond to questions and insights raised by attendees at the Foundation’s Youth Mental Health Summit hosted with the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General in April 2023. Field experts at Annie E. Casey Foundation are set to host the following upcoming sessions that will feature leading researchers and practitioners:
1. Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Immigrants will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on November 21, 2023;
2. Exploring Community-based Approaches to Youth Mental Health care will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on December 19, 2023; and
3. Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences: Creating Safe and Nurturing Environment will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on January 23, 2024.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently announced new webinars as part of its series focused on youth mental health. The series seeks to respond to questions and insights raised by attendees at the Foundation’s Youth Mental Health Summit hosted with the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General in April 2023. Field experts at Annie E. Casey Foundation are set to host the following upcoming sessions that will feature leading researchers and practitioners:
1. Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Immigrants will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on November 21, 2023;
2. Exploring Community-based Approaches to Youth Mental Health care will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on December 19, 2023; and
3. Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences: Creating Safe and Nurturing Environment will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on January 23, 2024.

LifeSet is an intensive case management program that prepares young people in foster care for the transition to adulthood. LifeSet specialists meet weekly with youth to provide individualized, intensive services as youth work towards self-defined goals in areas such as housing, employment, education, and money management. This Chapin Hall report presents findings from the Phase II evaluation of LifeSet’s implementation by three child services providers in Illinois. Phase II evaluation activities included focus groups with LifeSet specialists; interviews with LifeSet supervisors, licensed program experts, and young people who participated in LifeSet; and an analysis of both Department of Children and Family Services administrative data and GuideTree program data from Youth Villages.

Registered Apprenticeships are recognized as a key strategy to improving job quality and creating access to good-paying jobs for all, including populations historically underrepresented – women, people of color, and individuals with a disability – and underserved populations. The U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau will be hosting a webinar on November 16, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. ET to 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss creating access to good-paying jobs for youth and young adult women. It will highlight the importance of educating young women on the advantages of apprenticeship, feature programs and training opportunities, discuss recruitment strategies, and share information on Department of Labor apprenticeship programs.

The success sequence is discussed in the context of policy approaches for reducing poverty and improving economic opportunity for adolescents and young adults. It refers to a series of milestones in life associated with escaping poverty and joining the middle class, most commonly including high school completion, full-time employment, and waiting for marriage to have children. Policy approaches influenced by the success sequence theory emphasize educational programming and public awareness campaigns to spread knowledge around the importance of following success sequence milestones to achieve economic self-sufficiency. This Mathematica report is the third in a series on the success sequence conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services. This report presents findings from this mixed-methods study that investigates the factors associated with following the success sequence and economic self-sufficiency. 

Access the first report and second report here.

Registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs) are industry-driven, high-quality career pathways that not only allow employers to build a future-focused workforce but also provide high-paying, high-quality job opportunities for individual career seekers. Given that four-year education and secondary education systems are not attractive or feasible to everyone, RAPs provide a dynamic alternate solution for youth to gain skills and experience in fields of interest while earning a progressive wage and receiving on-the-job training. The American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) population is—and has historically been—underrepresented in RAPs across all age groups and occupations. Of the 547,922 active apprentices in FY2021, only 6,523 individuals identified as AI/AN. This Cybersecurity Youth Apprenticeship Initiative white paper includes culturally relevant tips and best practices to better recruit and employ AI/AN youth.

Understanding trauma and being able to implement trauma-informed programming is critical to the success of any youth organization working with marginalized populations. Although many organizations might talk about trauma, they also struggle to take that knowledge and implement changes to programs and policies that are truly trauma informed. The National Youth Employment Coalition will host the second webinar of a two-part series on November 9, 2023 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET, where participants will hear discussions on the behaviors that adults working with young people can engage in that are trauma-informed and supportive. This workshop will also discuss how helping relationships can go awry, mimicking, usually unintentionally, the types of abusive relationships that young people have experienced.