Youth Employment Programming that Works:
A Discussion with the PEPNet 2000 Awardees

A Forum — September 22, 2000

Five years ago, the National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) brought together a working group of youth development practitioners, researchers, and policymakers to address the notion that "nothing worked" in youth programming. The working group created a set of research-based and practice-based criteria for what works in preparing young people to enter the workforce and succeed in education. These criteria became the basis for NYEC’s Promising and Effective Practices Network (PEPNet) awards. For each of the past five years NYEC has, with support from the Department of Labor, selected high quality youth programs that pass through a rigorous application and review process as PEPNet awardees. As in past years, the American Youth Policy Forum brought representatives of the PEPNet awardees (project directors and youth participants) to speak with policymakers about what makes their programs work and how federal policy has influenced the field of youth workforce development.

PEPNet has twenty-two criteria, organized in five broad categories, which help youth programs improve and assess the services that they provide to young people. The five broad categories are Purpose and Activities, Organization and Management, Youth Development, Workforce Development, and Evidence of Success. Under Purpose and Activities, for instance, programs are urged to refine their mission statement and target the audience of young people they hope to serve. PEPNet’s category of Organization and Management includes criteria for staff development and continuous improvement as well as an emphasis on stable and diverse funding streams. Other criteria include caring and supportive relationships between staff and youth participants, employer involvement, and continuous evaluation to document program successes and areas for improvement.

When youth program directors apply for the PEPNet award, they must demonstrate that their programs meet the high standards set by each of the 22 criteria in a detailed, forty-page application. A panel of nationally-recognized leaders in the youth development field—educators, policymakers, researchers, and program directors—evaluates each application, highlighting the program’s strengths and the areas in which they can improve. According to Paul Masiarchin, an NYEC Program Associate, this rigorous application process encourages applicants to "undertake serious self-reflection," which helps them improve their programs regardless of whether or not they receive the award.

This year, the PEPNet review panel presented seven awards to first-time applicants and renewed the awards for three previous winners who have continued to provide high quality services for youth. The PEPNet 2000 awardees are:

• Baltimore City Fire Cadet Program* (Baltimore, MD)
• Career Academy (Baltimore, MD)
• Casa Verde Builders* (Austin, TX)
• Diploma Plus (Boston, MA)
• Genesee County Adolescent Vocational Exploration Program (Batavia, NY)
• Lansing Area Manufacturing Partnership (Lansing, MI)
• Linking Learning to Life (Burlington, VT)
• Milwaukee Community Service Corps* (Milwaukee, WI)
• Ohio Civilian Conservation Corps (Ohio)
• Youthbuild Phoenix (Phoenix, AZ)

*denotes PEPNet renewal award

The AYPF forum provided a chance for congressional staffers and other policymakers to meet young people, staff, and directors from each of these award winning programs. Kate O’Sullivan, Director of PEPNet for NYEC, gave a historical overview of the awards and introduced the 2000 awardees. Howard Knoll, Chair of the PEPNet Working Group, served as the moderator for the panel discussions with both the youth and the program directors.

The young people spoke first about how they entered the programs and how these successful initiatives influenced their lives. Some of the youth found out about the programs through friends, neighbors, and relatives, while others learned about them through their schools or the juvenile justice system. Shamika Caro found out about the Casa Verde Builders Program with American Youth Works through a high school counselor in her hometown of Austin, Texas. "This program was for kids going down the wrong path," Caro said, "and it helped me to make a U-turn" in my life. Like Caro and most of the kids on his block in one of Baltimore’s rougher neighborhoods, Silkman Richardson had never thought that a serious career was even an option. But when his little brother told him about the city’s Career Academy, he got his first look at a different avenue to success. For Richardson, the best thing about Baltimore’s Career Academy was the choices that it opened up to him. "At the beginning," Richardson remembered, "there was a 30-day orientation where we could pick what job we wanted, not just what someone else told us to do." This combination of on-the-job training in a career of his choice and class work that prepared him for the GED exam turned out to be just right for Richardson.

While this mix of educational and career development services is integral to all of the PEPNet programs, the young people focused on another crucial component that makes these programs successful—a connection to caring adults. In the Genesee County Adolescent Vocational Exploration Program, Ryan Colvin created a career portfolio and took advantage of several job shadowing opportunities, but he noted that one of the most important components of the program was one-on-one tutoring. "One of the tutors, Danny Grant, is not just a tutor, he’s my friend," Colvin said. Stephanie Watson had a similar experience in Burlington, Vermont’s Linking Learning to Life program, and she echoed Colvin’s remarks about the importance of a personal connection to stable, caring adults. She noted, "The support I felt from the adults made me stay. So many of the kids come from homes where adults don’t care about us." Finally, Quentin Morgan y Aubreu talked about how the staff of the Ohio Civilian Conservation Corps (OCCC) helped him escape a life of gang-banging on the streets, where he knew he would end up "either in a casket or behind bars." Morgan y Aubreu remarked, "The [OCCC] staff didn’t actually take care of [our] problems; they helped us solve our own problems." Now, instead of recruiting new gang members, this young man organizes new OCCC teams.

Given the importance that the young people placed on quality staff interactions, it is not surprising that the first topic addressed by program directors was staff recruitment. Kathy Tomlanovich from the Lansing Area Manufacturing Partnership remarked, "Our teachers need to be willing to take a chance and think outside the box, [while still] teaching with the best research-based strategies." Donald Reed, a Baltimore firefighter who runs the Baltimore City Fire Cadet Program for at-risk young people, looks for staff members who "stand tall and wear the uniform proudly," adults who can "bring kids from their ‘real’ to our ‘ideal.’"

When asked what policymakers could do to support these types of outstanding youth programs, all of the respondents emphasized the importance of "flexible, sustained funding streams" that do not "die when the political winds shift." Richard Halpin, the Program Director of Casa Verde Builders, pointed to the sunset of the National School-to-Work Opportunities Act, which according to Halpin has no "rational follow-up" to support programs on the local level once federal funding ends. Based on her experience in Lansing, Tomlanovich seconded Halpin’s complaint: "When School-to-Work money dried up, we had trouble supporting real world, contextual learning opportunities." Tomlanovich specifically requested that more support be directed at fostering school partnerships with business and industry leaders. Donald Reed asked congressional staffers to impress upon their bosses the importance of visiting the programs themselves and talking to the young people. "When it is easier to get [sports stars like] the Rock or Cal Ripken to come talk to my kids than my Congressman or my Senator, then something is wrong."

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