Children living in poverty are less likely to participate in structured learning activities during the summer months; Boston After School & Beyond, a citywide program based in Boston, Massachusetts, seeks to address the achievement gap between low-income students and their peers by offering a menu of online learning services and resources to support student enrichment and learning at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. A network of partners provides these enrichment supports, including learning and skills-building, meals delivery, and meeting emergency needs. The partners include: CitySprouts, Breakthrough Greater Boston, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, 3Point Foundation, African Community Economic Development of New England, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, and others.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration has compiled a list of resources from the 24 Youth CareerConnect grantees on program management strategies. These resources cover case management as well as monitoring and participant files, sustainability of Youth CareerConnect partnerships, and other relevant guidance for programs addressing the needs of youth. Also included are data and general information about the Youth CareerConnect program, engagement strategies, and career and education strategies.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration’s Division of Youth Services has produced a set of three webcasts to support the planning and implementation of WIOA youth programs. Webcast topics include: Employer Engagement; Partner Engagement (to include other non-employer stakeholders who offer supportive services and training to youth participants); and the Recruitment and Retention of Out-of-School Youth.

This blogpost, authored by the Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, discusses the Open Table initiative. This initiative supports youth in undergoing “significant life transformation” by using an intensive, relationship-focused, volunteer-based model to help them develop their own life plans; volunteers then use their own social networks to help youth implement these plans. The blogpost highlights Crosswinds Youth Services, a Runaway and Homeless Youth Transitional Living Program project in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where five “tables” were formed to provide group mentoring and help at-risk youth successfully leave the program.

The Children’s Bureau and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation convened an expert meeting on March 28, 2019 to discuss self-regulation and how the child welfare system can address youth development in foster care and youth transitioning into adulthood. The meeting’s purpose was to describe self-regulation, identify knowledge gaps, and point to learning opportunities. The meeting and summary report complement earlier work on toxic stress that the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation has conducted.

This research-to-practice brief summarizes interview findings from juvenile justice system administrators in communities that are moving away from youth prisons and toward investing in community-based solutions. The interviews from these agency administrators identified four key lessons: maximize windows of opportunity to establish a continuum of community care; develop strategic partnerships with advocates to prioritize relevant issues for juvenile justice reform; collaborate with youth, families, and community members who interact with juvenile ex-offenders; and use data and research to make the case for closing youth prisons. Interviews were conducted with juvenile justice administrators in Louisiana, Wisconsin, New York, and the District of Columbia.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) will host a webinar on May 4, 2020 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss how to manage WIOA youth programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Presenters from the ETA will answer participant questions and share resources and best practices.

This online resource serves as a toolkit for creating a common understanding of adolescent development among practitioners, grant writers, program managers, and other stakeholders serving young people by defining related terms and concepts. The resource offers a three-section glossary of terms to reflect: contexts, which describe the economic, educational, social, and family circumstances in which youth and young adults currently live or were raised; interventions, which reflect the approaches and measures used in programs supporting young people; and outcomes, which cover the potential mental, social, and physical health results of these interventions or the gains made in educational attainment or newly-gained career skills. The resource also provides definitions of commonly used evaluation approaches.

This blogpost examines the likelihood of children’s risk to returning to foster care if they are infants, in their early teens, or have experienced a group placement before reunification with their birth families. The blogpost summarizes research on more than 600,000 children in 20 states over a seven-year period, from 2003 to 2010, with follow-up analysis concluding in 2017. Variables assessing the risk of foster care reentry included: children’s race, ethnicity, gender, and age; children’s placement history; and the social and economic context of the placement. Additionally, the blogpost covers how child welfare agencies could identify children who might benefit from Family First Prevention Services Act interventions.

This research-to-practice brief assesses the impact of evaluation technical assistance (ETA) provided to grantees under two federal initiatives: Youth At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH), funded by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3), a multi-agency funded initiative. The brief covers details about the grant programs and the provision of ETA evaluation offered; success, utilization, and benefits of ETA; how program requirements and evaluation needs were balanced; and how to make ETA successful for this and similar programs targeting disconnected youth.