Youth apprenticeship has gained traction across the United States, and many programs have adopted the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) Definition & Principles for Youth Apprenticeship to guide program design and implementation. It is critical that apprenticeships are career-oriented, equitable, portable, adaptable, and accountable. Building from these principles, PAYA has developed this Youth Apprenticeship Quality Assessment Tool as part of a four-step protocol aimed at assisting education providers, employer and industry partners, intermediary organizations, and other youth apprenticeship leaders in collaboratively identifying ways to improve policies, procedures, and practices in support of learner success.

Registered and non-registered apprenticeships come in many shapes and are adaptable to traditional and non-traditional industries and occupations. Traditional apprenticeship occupations have been mainly in skilled trades such as carpentry, electrical, and plumbing. Today, apprenticeships span across non-traditional industries such as information technology, health care, and green energy. This brief highlights the benefits of apprenticeships, including pre-apprenticeship, and registered and non-registered apprenticeship programs as a viable career pathway for career seekers with disabilities.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, this report is a roadmap to outline the three stages of building, managing, and sustaining a registered apprenticeship program for young people. The roadmap includes steps under each respective stage and provides a set of tools, guidance documents and templates in the accompanying appendix.

Families experiencing poverty and economic pressure have increased risk for child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and acts of violence by youth. This article highlights several programs that reduce rates of family and child poverty, including TANF, but it notes how TANF policies in particular have the greatest economic security policy discrepancies across states despite research that shows policies that increase access to money protect against family and youth violence. The article discusses research that indicates work requirements in TANF and other evidence-based interventions may protect against violence by increasing individual and family resources. However, one-size-fits-all work requirements may have unanticipated negative effects, such as an increase in sanctions that contribute to unemployment or under-employment when an individual cannot meet set requirements or leaving single mothers with less time to care for their children, which may increase the risk of child maltreatment.

This blogpost profiles how Covenant House in New York City, the largest service provider for homeless youth, has used motivational interviewing techniques since 2018. These techniques have been shown to be particularly effective in helping this population deal with depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues. It also explains how the Annie E. Casey Foundation supported Covenant House partnering with mental health technology startup, Lyssn, to tailor their motivational interviewing artificial intelligence to a more diverse youth population. The software, which complies with federal health privacy law, records motivational interviewing sessions and uses an algorithm to evaluate the interviewer’s performance. Additionally, a chatbot app, ClientBot, was created to simulate interviewing scenarios that help Covenant House staff practice motivational interviewing techniques.

Supervision and coaching are vital opportunities to build workers’ skills. This virtual Coaching Tool gives supervisors key questions, guidance, and ideas about how to help workers assess and support Protective and Promotive Factors with youth. It reinforces and puts into action the Youth Thrive Framework and training content. The tool can be used in individual and/or group supervision, in conjunction with other supervisory models or approaches, or as part of training and professional development. Further, public agencies, non-profit and community-based organizations, and any place that provides youth services will find it useful.

The authors of these five essays explore the extent to which young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds achieve steady, decent-paying employment by their early thirties. Using multivariate analysis, they identify factors predicting membership to four different earnings groups. Factors associated with membership in one or both of the higher-earning groups include higher education, military service, union membership, job-related training, and working in a non-service sector occupation at age 25. Factors associated with belonging to a lower-earning group include incarceration, work-limiting health conditions, and prolonged unemployment.

Stable employment helps build a solid foundation for youth as they enter adulthood. Some youth involved in the justice system—especially for serious offenses—may face increased barriers to finding and securing employment. This blogpost features the results from a national scan of workforce programs that identify strategies that may help overcome these challenges. The research identifies common features of quality community-based workforce development programs that serve youth and young adults with criminal or juvenile records. The scan also notes common program offerings, promising practices, and marks of a supportive infrastructure. The information collected helps identify the kinds of organizational structures, partnerships and collaboration that are essential to helping young people with records succeed in the workforce.

This fact sheet targeted primarily for young adults offers information on what it means to take care of oneself as well as hotline telephone numbers and links to information on conversation starters and self-care.

During the holiday season, families are dealing with stress from multiple sources, including navigating how to safely gather given the COVID-19 safety protocols. This National Child Traumatic Stress Network fact sheet offers parents and caregivers a set of strategies and ideas to make the holiday season special. These strategies include starting a family conversation on what has changed and how family members are feeling, finding ways to make connections, making small moments matter, keeping a routine, and noticing good things. The fact sheet also suggests ideas for self-care and notes on how to find available help and support.