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Briefs

Looking for a summary? Info Briefs describe policy, practice, or research on critical issues and challenges facing the workforce development system in serving youth. Research Briefs consolidate references to key published resources on a given area of focus.

InfoBriefs

  • Blending And Braiding Funds And Resources: The Intermediary As Facilitator

    This InfoBrief focuses on how intermediary organizations can facilitate the blending and braiding of funds and resources to encourage cross-systems collaboration and, in turn, to improve the educational and employment outcomes for all youth, including those with disabilities. This brief identifies strategies that states can use to support local communities in the “blending” and “braiding” of resources, and outlines how cross-systems collaboration and alternative funding strategies can be facilitated by intermediary organizations.

  • Breaking Down Technological Barriers

    This InfoBrief describes assistive technology and accessible information and gives policymakers information on federal and state accessibility legislation, laws and requirements.

  • Disability Inquiries In The Workforce Development System

    This InfoBrief is for those working in One-Stop centers as well as youth and adult service providers who interact with individuals with disabilities. It is designed to help clarify what you can and cannot ask about someone's disability.

  • Facilitating Employer Engagement Among Wib Partners: A Role For Intermediaries

    This InfoBrief focuses on how Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) can ensure strong business leadership roles in their state and local workforce systems by creating and fostering intermediaries that effectively link employers with One-Stops and their partners. Strategies and examples are shared that illustrate how intermediaries can facilitate, coordinate, and streamline employer engagement responsibilities among WIB partners.

  • Financial Literacy Information For Young People With Disabilities

    This InfoBrief describes the federal and state initiatives that provide financial literacy information for young people with disabilities to learn how to save money and build assets.

  • Graduation Requirements and Diploma Options for Students with Disabilities: What Families and Advocates Need to Know

    This InfoBrief explores the importance of making informed decisions about diploma options, understanding the consequences of graduating with different types of diplomas as well as the need for youth, families, and Individual Education Program (IEP) teams to consider these issues early.

  • Helping Youth with Mental Health Needs Avoid Transition Cliffs: Lessons from Pioneering Transition Programs

    This InfoBrief discusses challenges faced by youth and young adults with mental health needs during their transition to adulthood and describes strategies used by youth service professionals to avoid age-related transition cliffs and prevent service interruptions during this critical stage of development. This InfoBrief is based on a rich body of research about transition-age youth with mental health needs published in four separate reports in the last two years, including two produced by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth.

  • How Young People Can Benefit from One-Stop Centers

    This InfoBrief provides information about One-Stop Centers and how the services at One-Stop Centers can help youth enter the workforce.

  • IDEA Revised: Special Education Law Enacted

    After three years of intense debate and compromise, America’s federal statute governing special education has been revised, enacted and, for the most part, will take effect July 2005. The revisions of IDEA contained in the new law, Public Law 108-446, build on and more closely align IDEA with the No Child Left Behind Act. They also modify important requirements around individualized student planning, transition, litigation, and due process protections, monitoring and enforcement, and federal funding. This InfoBrief is a summary of some of the major provisions in the new law.

  • Labor Market Trends for Technology-Focused Occupations and Career Fields: Implications for High School/ High Tech Program Operators

    This InfoBrief details information from a variety of sources, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Monthly Labor Review, which point to increasing expansion in technology career fields and explains what this means for HS/HT programs

  • Making the Connections: Growing and Supporting New Organizations: Intermediaries (Brief)

    The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) of the US Department of Labor (DOL) is testing a new organizational strategy — intermediary organizations. 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 while at the same time assisting employers in meeting their need for qualified skilled workers. This InfoBrief is for policymakers and program managers at the state and community level that are involved in developing intermediaries.

  • Math, Science, and Technology: Essential Skills for Career Success in the 21st Century

    This InfoBrief focuses on targeted career planning efforts for youth. The brief provides basic information on math, science, and technology as a fundamental need in our day-to-day lives, and highlights suggested academic coursework to better prepare young adults for the top growing careers.

  • New Departments Address Disability Issues

    This brief describes the new federal and state programs and agencies that provide services for people with disabilities to live independent and productive lives.

  • Personal Assistance Services On The Job

    This InfoBrief is for anyone who interacts with youth with disabilities and would like to know about the programs under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. The brief provides background on those parts of the Workforce Investment Act that cover service to youth so that youth, families, and service providers can better connect to the workforce development system.

  • Serving Youth with Disabilities Under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998: The Basics

    This InfoBrief is for anyone who interacts with youth with disabilities and would like to know about the programs under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. The brief provides background on those parts of the Workforce Investment Act that cover service to youth so that youth, families, and service providers can better connect to the workforce development system.

  • Strategies for Youth Workforce Programs to Become Employer-Friendly Intermediaries

    This InfoBrief focuses on how youth-serving organizations can become more effective as intermediary linkages between youth and employers by adopting certain practices. This brief offers basic employer-friendly strategies that will assist intermediaries and their representatives in making productive connections with employer customers that can result in successful work experiences for youth. Increasingly, state and local workforce boards and their youth-service-providing partners are realizing the need to assess their capacities and strategies to link with and provide supports to employers.

  • Successful Transition Models for Youth with Mental Health Needs: A Guide for Workforce Professionals

    This InfoBrief describes the systems’ service barriers faced by youth with mental health needs as they reach adulthood, while highlighting new models and strategies designed to break down those barriers and help them to transition successfully into the workplace.

  • The California Workforce Inclusion Act: Supporting Workforce Participation of People with Disabilities

    This InfoBrief is for anyone who interacts with youth with disabilities and would like to know about the programs under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. The brief provides background on those parts of the Workforce Investment Act that cover service to youth so that youth, families, and service providers can better connect to the workforce development system.

  • The Right Connections: Navigating the Workforce Development System

    This InfoBrief is for administrators and youth service professionals who provide programming to young people and want to connect their programs to the workforce development system.

  • The Workforce Development System & the Professional Development of Youth Service Professionals: Why Professional Development?

    This InfoBrief identifies the benefits to the workforce development system, youth, and the community gained through the professional development of youth service professionals, including a five-step plan for policymakers interested in supporting the professional development of youth service professionals in their local areas.

  • Vocational Assessment and Its Role in Career Planning

    This InfoBrief discusses career planning and vocational assessment for transition-age youth.

  • Youth and Disability Disclosure: The Role of Families and Advocates

    This InfoBrief highlights NCWD-Youth’s The 411 on Disability Disclosure, and explores the role families and advocates play in helping youth understand the importance of appropriate disability disclosure.

  • Youth Development and Leadership in Programs

    This InfoBrief describes how administrators and policymakers can use the concepts of youth development and leadership in developing and administering programs that serve all youth and activities specifically geared toward youth with disabilities. The brief is based on a longer paper, Youth Development and Leadership, A White Paper, published by The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth. Youth Development and Leadership in Programs

Policy Briefs

  • Performance Measurement In The New Workforce Development Environment: A Background Paper

    This Policy Brief offers a simple primer for the dialogue based on a review of the literature; that is, it is a descriptive background paper about WIA’s performance measurement requirements, including those of the mandated partners. The paper is organized to offer a common understanding of key terminology and then briefly describes the history of performance accountability in the workforce development system beginning with the Government Performance and Results Act through the current push toward common measures across programs.

  • Supporting Transition to Adulthood Among Youth with Mental Health Needs: Action Steps for Policymakers
    This Policy Brief calls attention to the challenges faced by youth and young adults with mental health needs during their transition to adulthood and provides information to help policymakers at the state and local level develop and improve service delivery systems for this population.

Research Briefs

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