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Documents dealing with topics or themes key to the work of NCWD/Youth. These papers include a synthesis of research, definitions, information on programs and practices, outcomes, measurements, and references.

• Transitioning Youth with Mental Health Needs to Meaningful Employment and Independent Living
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  NCWD/Youth, with funding from the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) of the U.S. Department of Labor, carried out a study on successful strategies to help youth with mental health needs transition to postsecondary education, employment, and independent lives. With a focus primarily on the role of skills development, work, and career exploration, case studies were conducted of five promising program sites, and program design features and system-level policies that appear to help youth and young adults with mental health conditions better transition into adulthood and life-long success were identified.
• Performance Measures - Adjustment And Incentives
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  This paper reviews what we know about performance measures and their effects and highlights key issues and approaches for addressing adjustments to them. It is intended for a broad audience of policymakers and program administrators responsible for such programs as education, ranging from public (K-12) and adult education, to career and technical education, workforce development, and vocational rehabilitation. Thus, it encompasses a wide swath of publicly funded interventions designed to help hard-to-serve adults and youth, regardless of their background or characteristics, succeed in society and in the labor market. The paper concludes that programs would benefit considerably from adopting mechanisms for adjusting performance and providing incentives to encourage services to disadvantaged adults and youth and other hard-to-serve target populations.
• Youth Development & Leadership
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  This paper assists youth service practitioners, administrators, and policy makers in defining, differentiating, and providing youth development and leadership programs and activities, which are important components of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). All effective youth programs have youth development at their core and all effective youth leadership programs build on solid youth development principles.
• Knowledge, Skills and Abilities of Youth Service Practitioners: The Centerpiece of a Successful Workforce Development System
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  The purpose of this paper is to review the current state of practice within the workforce development system in reference to the competencies — the combined knowledge, skills, and abilities — of youth service practitioners. The paper looks at how and by whom: 1) required content is established; 2) training and education based upon that content are provided; and 3) credentials are given. Additionally, the paper outlines some possible action steps to build stronger connections among organizations and workforce development institutions to ensure that skilled staff serves youth and employers.
• Making the Connections: Growing and Supporting New Organizations--Intermediaries
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  The paper describes how a new organizational strategy - intermediaries - can link the supply and demand sides of workforce development. By aligning and brokering multiple services across institutional and funding sources, intermediary organizations can play an important role in improving employment outcomes for youth with disabilities.
• Toward Universal Access in the Workforce Development System
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  This paper explores the core concepts of “universal service,” which has a very distinct meaning inside the employment and training arena, and that of “universal design” in the context of disability public policy. In addition, this paper urges the adoption of a comprehensive definition of universal access that would apply across all titles of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to all programs and services in the One-Stop system and incorporate elements of universal access, universal service, architectural accessibility, programmatic accessibility, and universal design, as defined in the disability policy arena.