This Jobs for the Future issue brief includes data and infographics that outline Federal programs designed to serve opportunity youth in poverty by bridging improved educational and economic outcomes, including TANF, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Pell Grants.

This Annie E. Casey Foundation-supported study, authored by Brookings and Child Trends, identifies three factors that contribute to future economic progress among low-income youth: a post-secondary education (potentially equalizes young adults searching for high-quality jobs), labor market experience at an early age (predicts higher wages and job quality later in life), and relevant high school work-based learning experiences (involve positive relationships with adults and have a positive effect on job quality).

This blog post from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is part of the "Self-Sufficiency Series: Solutions from the Field" and highlights a West Virginian program that aims to teach at-risk youth about the “success sequence” path from school to work through marriage and family in a positive and non-judgmental way. Project T.H.I.N.K. discusses healthy relationships and provides resources to inform participants about the transition to adulthood, which can help them avoid early pregnancies, overcome poverty traps, understand what being a parent might be like, and ultimately lay a foundation for a successful and mobile future. The project especially tries to avoid shaming or nagging and works to understand the situations of all participants, whether they already have children or not.

Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a capacity-building approach to program interventions that aims to promote soft skills, positive relationships, community involvement, family-school-work linkages, and academic engagement among youth to create a fully supportive and safe environment. The PILOT tool, developed by Child Trends, works on implementing those strategies concretely in the workforce for youth in primarily middle skill jobs. After working with five organizations to integrate the PILOT tool into their workplaces, Child Trends found that it not only improves the work outcomes of vulnerable youth populations and generates internal and external conversations about PYD, but that many places that practice these initiatives do so without formal recognition or prompting and thus go unfunded. Child Trends expects to further help program stakeholders, leaders, and funders in the next phase of their program when they look into how to systematize PYD policies.

As youth transition into adulthood, financial literacy is crucial for self-sufficiency. To help young adults understand and manage their finances, the Federal Trade Commission and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention will sponsor a webinar on September 20 on topics such as generating good credit, avoiding debt burden on student loans, buying cars, and avoiding identity theft, among other important topics.

This U.S. Department of Health and Human Services blog post highlights Bethany Christian Services (BCS), an organization dedicated to helping foster children transition into adulthood. Using evidence-based curriculum, BCS offers workforce development skills and workforce stipend experiences to youth in foster care, while also providing information on life skills, including pregnancy prevention, career path education, budgeting, resume development, and more. Participants are assigned a case manager to guide them, answer questions about the transition to adulthood, and help them build self-confidence and self-sufficiency. To learn more about BCS or other pregnancy prevention programs funded through the Family and Youth Services Bureau, visit their website.

This report presents findings from an OPRE evaluation of New York City’s Young Adult Internship Program (YAIP) that strove to provide subsidized employment and support services for disconnected youth. Implementation and short-term impact studies were previously conducted, so this report details longer term impacts and performs a cost analysis. While the program initially led to strong employment and earnings gains for participants, the results faded after 30 months and participants did not transition into education, employment, military, or training programs at higher rates than the control group. At $5,431 per participant, this intervention is on the lower end of the spectrum of similar programs, which can range from $4,200 to $10,000 per group member. The authors concluded that “light-touch employment and personal development services” are insufficient to translate into sustained employment and earning outcomes, and that future programs should pay more attention to transitioning their participants from subsidized work to long-term unsubsidized employment.

The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection is continuing its Youth Employment Success (YES) initiative with a new 2019 cohort. This program aims to improve financial literacy for youth in job readiness programs and is looking for five new programs across the country that are interested in creating and testing tools to help youth better understand their finances. Ultimately, the program goal is to improve socioeconomic self-sufficiency and employment outcomes in youth job programs, as well as develop sustainable tools to serve youth across the country. If selected, the programs will receive access to new tools developed by the Bureau and will also be able to evaluate and make suggestions on the tools. Selection criteria include mission alignment, organizational capacity, target population, willingness to share feedback, and relationships with similar programs. If you think your program and participants would benefit from a tool and training to improve young adult finances, email empowerment@cfpb.gov with a Letter of Interest by November 26, 2018. Other resources for Youth Employment Programs can be found at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/practitioner-resources/resources-youth-employment-programs/.

Based on a prior report on associations of time in extended foster care with youth outcomes, researchers at Chapin Hall examined data of more than 40,000 youth from California’s Child Welfare Services/Case Management System, including youth who had been in foster care for at least six months sometime after their 16th birthday. Researchers were unable to discover negative consequences of extended foster care beyond age 18. Instead, they reported that remaining in care past age 18 assists in meeting youths’ basic needs, reduces the chance of becoming a young parent and interacting with the criminal justice system, and helps them advance their education, acquire additional work experience, and save money.

An MDRC infographic provides initial findings of the Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) initiative, which targets youth ages 15-25 who have been involved in the child welfare and justice systems, or who are homeless. The infographic identifies components of two established national programs – Jobs for America’s Graduates and the Jobs for the Future Back on Track – and the LEAP enhancements for case management and training that are offered locally to support youth in employment and postsecondary educational opportunities.