Youth Councils:
Strategies for Comprehensive Youth Policies

A Forum — January 25, 2002

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) presents a unique opportunity to change the way workforce investment programs and other youth development programs are organized and operated to serve youth. The new law requires the formation of interdisciplinary Youth Councils, part of Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs), to develop one comprehensive plan for youth services. WIA provides the framework for local areas to realign, enhance, and improve youth services so that they are more closely coordinated, better utilized and more effective. It offers local areas the chance to look at how both in-school and out-of-school youth services are blended and deployed.

WIA fuses youth development with more traditional workforce development approaches. The key is integrating these concepts into a system of effective connections for youth that will enable them to succeed. But the challenge is complex. In addition to the usual start-up issues, the WIA vision of comprehensive, holistic approaches to serving youth requires new relationships and partnerships between public and private service providers, schools, and other community organizations.

Irene Lynn, Director of the Office of Youth Opportunities in the U.S. Department of Labor, reviewed the status of implementation of Youth Councils across the country. The WIA's intent to move youth services from the traditional focus on short-term summer jobs to a concern with longer-term employment, and to give special attention to out-of-school youth has presented the new Youth Council's with significant challenges. In addition to the requirement to bring together stakeholders representing all sectors and systems, the councils also must map existing resources, develop a strategy for youth services, and conduct the immediate work of recommending local service providers and coordinating local youth activities.

Youth Councils are up and running in each of the local areas of the WIA (a number of states also have set up state youth councils) and are beginning to address the WIA requirements and to deal with the start up challenges that face any new entity. Because the allocation of funds from WIA available for each council ranges between only $200,000-300,000, many councils have found it difficult to hire the necessary staff to support their work. The US Department of Labor provides some technical assistance, including: training for Youth Council staff, convening council members to showcase best practices, providing assistance with strategic planning, and developing "reference tools" (to be released in the near future).

Lynn concluded her remarks by noting two important issues that remain unresolved. The first is the difficulty that many areas are finding in reaching the WIA's goal of serving 30% of out-of-school youth. The second is the difficulty in gathering the information necessary for the 2003 WIA re-authorization regarding the impact of WIA and youth councils from programs that have had insufficient time to implement and evaluate system change.

Marion Pines, Director of the Sar Levitan Center for Policy Studies at Johns Hopkins University described the time and patience required to convene a wide range of stakeholders, many of which have not been previously connected and are not within the Department of Labor jurisdiction. Building trust among these organizations can consume much of the first year. The Levitan Center has developed several publications that can help with these tasks (www.levitan.org/policymakers.html). She also highlighted the funding pressures commensurate with the WIA focus on year-round vs. part-time employment and focusing on out-of-school youth. The traditional focus on summer jobs assumed that the public education system would provide support for young people during the 9-month school year. The WIA's intent to promote year-round jobs and to direct 30% of funding to out-of-school youth inevitably increases the cost of initiatives for youth not in school.

Karen Sitnick, Director of the Mayor's Office of Employment Development in the City of Baltimore, MD, responded to issues raised by Lynn and Pines from the perspective of the local level. Sitnick emphasized the time and patience required to establish commitment and "ownership" from government as well as from partners. The Baltimore youth opportunity initiative under WIA benefited from early and visible commitment by the Mayor and city council. Its success is also a result of 20 years of work, beginning with community-wide agreement in the early 1980s that preparing young people for work should be the responsibility of more than a single agency. The Youth Council's strong beginning was amplified by the Youth Opportunity Grant awarded in 2000 that enabled them to take time to convene partners, discuss what a system for both in-school and out-of-school youth might look like, and to agree on a common goal. She also commented on the importance of sufficient staff to ensure ongoing attention to critical issues.

Ms. Sitnick discussed Baltimore's efforts to comply with the WIA mandate for serving out-of-school youth. Because Baltimore has a 50-60% dropout rate, the out-of-school youth population is large and most programs and vendors - even those engaged in school-to-work - serve out-of-school youth. Baltimore is developing a "one stop" approach for youth services and establishing centers in areas where these young people live.

Nathan Powell, Workforce Development Liaison for Oklahoma's Careertech system, provided a perspective from the state level. He acknowledged the slow progress of many of Oklahoma's 12 workforce investment areas in taking full advantage of the WIA's Youth Council approach. The foundation for collaboration among youth employment stakeholders is not of long-standing duration in many of these areas, and the councils cannot take a shared purpose for granted. One method that has proven to be successful is to clearly identify the self-interest of each stakeholder in addressing youth employment and to keep that interest "front and center" in order to ensure ongoing commitment. Many of the councils are struggling to understand the scope and requirements of the wide variety of regulations and legislation that affect youth, in order to develop a strategy for bringing partners together and blending existing programs. The immediate demands for selecting service providers, finalizing contracts, and other activities make it difficult to find time to focus on developing the mission and strategies, Powell said.

Powell remarked on the frustrations in serving out-of-school youth in Oklahoma, both because of a lack of coordination between experienced local vendors and the Youth Council and because of insufficient funds. There are 20,000 young people eligible for these programs in Oklahoma, but the WIA funds will support service for only about 300. The councils have begun to look for other sources of funding that may be available from other programs.

Marion Pines offered an example of leveraging the funds for youth education that are tied to school attendance criteria (Average Daily Attendance): The Portland, Oregon government approved adding $9-10 million to school budgets to be used for 3000 dropouts. These youth were "enrolled" in the schools, which in turn contracted with vendors for out-of-school programs. One caution to this type of innovation is that the programs must be rigorous enough to enable the out-of-school youth to pass the state standards examinations.

All four members of the panel agreed on the critical necessity of time for these programs to develop, have an impact, and demonstrate useful evidence for evaluation. They emphasized that young people, particularly out-of-school youth, have widely varying needs and, therefore, widely varying resource requirements.

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