On December 1, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA), Region 2 hosted the How Can ETA Assist Our Grantees in Serving Disconnected Youth under WIOA? Discovery Session. The session involved state workforce leaders, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) representatives, and leaders from youth-serving workforce programs and nonprofit organizations within ETA Region 2. ETA designed the session to assist in identifying technical assistance needs of workforce programs in ETA Region 2. Specific session topics included: Studying Summer Jobs for Disadvantaged Youth; The Employment Situation of Youth, Veterans, and Persons with Disabilities; and Youth Perspectives on various youth serving programs, presented through a facilitated panel discussion. The session also focused on information sharing and gathering through group reflections designed to offer suggestions for future technical assistance delivery.

This purpose of this paper, from MDRC, was to conduct a scan of the current state of the evidence regarding what works in helping disconnected young people. To develop the paper, MDRC conducted a literature review and reviews of websites to learn about current policy trends and evaluations in process. To supplement lessons from written materials, MDRC interviewed practitioners in the field.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is conducting new research on this topic with the goal of learning more about potential racial and ethnic disparities in human services and how a better understanding of these disparities could be used to improve human service program delivery for ACF. The project will investigate ethnic and racial differences in the access to and take-up of human services and will develop a plan to analyze racial and ethnic disparities in the nature and quality of services received and outcomes of services. Particular ACF programs of interest include TANF, Head Start, Child Care, and Child Support. The project has been awarded to the Urban Institute and will run from September 2015 through March 2017. If you are interested in learning more about this project, please contact Kim Clum at OPRE at Kimberly.clum@acf.hhs.gov.

The webinar, hosted by the Department of Labor in March 2016, highlights national which points to the importance of youth and adults gaining strong foundation skills, completing high school equivalence, and earning industry-recognized certificates and degrees in order to gain economic stability and self-sufficiency. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) offers multiple coordination points and opportunities with educational institutions at every level to get clients moving ahead.