Although about 20 percent of all youth will become at risk of disconnection at some time before reaching the age of 25, only 5 to 7 percent will reach age 25 without connecting in a meaningful way to employment and social support systems. This slide deck is a field scan of what selected school districts, foundations, and nonprofit organizations are doing to reconnect these young people to school and other social networks so that they are prepared for careers and further education. Individual slides can be taken from this deck and used in presentations.

A new Child Trends brief helps funders, administrators, and practitioners find evidence-based programs that may be appropriate for their target populations and communities. The Guide provides an overview of 22 resources and 12 searchable online databases that offer information on a range of evidence-based intervention programs.

On July 14, 2009, President Obama unveiled the American Graduation Initiative, a plan to raise graduation rates, improve facilities, and develop new technology. The plan would allow colleges to improve remedial and adult education programs and integrate developmental classes into academic and vocational classes and provide comprehensive personalized services to help students plan their careers and stay in school.

New York City faces a civic crisis of “disconnected” youth and young adults. There are over 163,000 young people ages 16 to 24 who are neither in school nor in the labor force. When we add the number of “unemployed” young adults, who are actively seeking work but unable to find it, we have more than 220,000 young people who are not in school nor working—nearly one in five of the total age group. These young people—largely youth of color from poor communities—are at high risk of becoming permanently disengaged from the labor market, threatening their ability to break out of the cycle of poverty and contribute to our economy and community. Their idleness represents a great waste of resources and human potential. The Community Service Society of New York looks offers recommendations.

The National Women's Law Center reports that unemployment among women who maintain families -- who have no other income to fall back on and are especially vulnerable -- jumped to 11.7 percent, an increase of 17 percent in three months.

New hires often lack the basic skills they need to do the job and efforts on the job to help them fill the gaps are only moderately successful. This report from Corporate Voices for Working Families argues that corporate America needs to strengthen partnerships with community colleges to prepare entrants before they enter the workforce.

First passed in 1998, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) is up for reauthorization. Jobs for the Future has specific recommendations to strengthen a modernized workforce development system. This system should be powerful enough to build and maintain a 21st century workforce, multifunctional to meet the needs of youth, workers, employers and communities, and flexible enough to adapt to a dynamic, competitive global economy.

The National Collaborative on Workforce & Disability for Youth and WSC recently released this case study report that examines the efforts of community colleges to function as intermediaries in meeting the local workforce development needs of employers and promoting career opportunities and job attainment for students, including those with disabilities.

Funds for youth development and after-school programs as a whole are scarce, and when resources are devoted to training or workforce development, they appear to be included as afterthoughts or minor priorities. The Next Generation Youth Work Coalition undertook a scan of a broad range of federal programs to determine how funds are being used to strengthen, support and retain youth workers. This report also starts a dialogue about increasing policy supports for this workforce that we trust to foster the positive development of our nation's young people.

Workforce programs targeting youth (often after-school programs or vocational alternatives to education) can help the more than 5 million young people who are out of work and school get job skills, preparation for college and vocational training, and other critical supports. This report, originally published by the Finance Project in April and now online, looks at challenges for youth workforce programs, and offers best practices and ideas for innovation. It also highlights four funding strategies.