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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS)
In 1990, the Secretary of Labor appointed a commission to determine the skills our young people need to succeed in the world of work. The commission's fundamental purpose was to encourage a high-performance economy characterized by high-skill, high-wage employment. Although the commission completed its work in 1992, its findings and recommendations continue to be a valuable source of information for individuals and organizations involved in education and workforce development.
Soft Skills to Pay the Bills: Mastering Soft Skills for Workplace Success
The Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy released this collection of career development exercises that aim to improve the "soft skills" of young workers, including those with disabilities.
Teaching the SCANS Competencies
This report compiles six articles that give education and training practitioners practical suggestions for applying SCANS in classrooms and the workplace.
- SCANS in Schools
- Implementing SCANS: First Lessons
- Students use SCANS to Explore Changing Jobs: Lessons of InidianaPLUS
- Prepearing Limited English Proficiency Students for the Workplace
- Technology and High Performance Schools: A SCANS Survey
- Assessment of the SCANS Competencies, Some Examples
Teaching Soft Skills Through Workplace Simulation in Classroom Settings
The Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy provides a resource focused on how schools and employment opportunities can teach soft skills, specifically for students with disabilities. Relevant soft skills, as mentioned in the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, include: teamwork, problem solving, effective use of resources and effective coommunication.
Training and Employment Guidance Letter on WIA Youth Program
The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has released a letter that provides guidance on the use of Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth–funded activities and provides program staff with information to improve services and to ensure legal compliance and successful future monitoring.
Tunnels and Cliffs: A Guide for Workforce Development Practitioners and Policymakers Serving Youth with Mental Health Needs
This guide provides practical information and resources for youth service professionals. In addition, it provides policymakers, from the program to the state level, with information to help them address system and policy obstacles in order to improve service delivery systems for youth with mental health needs.
Using TANF Funds to Support Subsidized Youth Employment: The 2010 Summer Youth Employment Initiative
This report from the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration examines data collected across seven states describing the partnerships between state and local TANF and workforce agencies and the youth employment initiatives that TANF funding supported.
Workforce System Strategies
Workforce System Strategies is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Labor administered by the Employment and Training Administration, which provides an online, public archive of resources to make it easier for workforce practitioners, administrators, policymakers, and researchers to identify and implement effective practices based on existing research, and ultimately, to support improved outcomes for workforce system customers. The site highlights workforce strategies that are backed by a wide range of evidence such as experimental studies, implementation evaluations, and performance data, and can be searched by methodology, states, programs, and target populations, including youth workers.
Workforce Investment Act Youth Programs
This program provides formula funds to states for local resources to deliver a comprehensive array of youth services that focus on assisting at-risk and disadvantaged youth attain education and skills for PSE and employment.
Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth Flash Training Series
The WIA Youth Flash Training Series provides information to professionals working with youth and connects them with tools and resources that can help them best serve program participants. These brief lessons (5 minutes or less) will focus on multiple WIA youth program topics, including the 10 WIA Youth Program elements, exit policies, finding youth program resources, waivers, and youth councils.
Young Workers
This resource from the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety & Health Administration provides teens, educators, parents, and employers with information on young worker issues. Details about workers' rights and links to training and other educational tools, including state youth employment laws, may also be found on this site.
“It Changed My Life Forever”: Our Job Corps Stories
Job Corps graduates share how their participation in the program helped them overcome adversity and succeed in their own way
YouthBuild
Youthbuild provides an alternative education pathway that encourages youth to obtain a high school diploma or GED, while advancing toward employment while developing leadership skills and serving the community.
Video: Job Corps Voices — Brittany and Making a Better Future — Career Training and Education Program
Job Corps is an encouraging environment where students can earn their GEDs and find career direction. Brittany, a young mother of two, shares how Job Corps helped her restart her life.
Share With Youth: Job Corps Voices: Kevin and Green Career Training — Career Training and Education Program
Job Corps provides students the opportunity to meet new people, earn a GED or equivalency credentials, and learn a new trade. Kevin hopes to improve the environment through "Green Training," focusing on advanced solar panel training.
Share with Youth: Job Corps Means — Feeling Needed
Job Corps not only provides the certifications and skills needed to build a successful career, it provides students with a purpose. Nursing students from the Jacksonville Job Corps share a day in the life of a nursing student and describe what they love most about their program.
Healthy Transitions: A Pathway to Employment for Youth with Chronic Health Conditions and Other Disabilities
This brief highlights an ODEP-commissioned study that aimed to improve understanding of the relationship between disability, health and wellness, and transition and employment outcomes for youth with disabilities (PDF, 13 pages), as well as the role health care providers play in establishing employment expectations. The brief also includes recommendations for promoting purposeful health care transition planning for all youth, including those with chronic health conditions and other disabilities.
Share with Youth: Hitting the Open Road After High School
Co-written by teens for teens, this resource can help youth with disabilities (PDF, 16 pages) think about their options for life after high school. It provides information on post-graduation options and guides students in making choices that are right for them, finding activities that can help them get ready now, and accessing supportive services.
Share with Youth: Helping Teens Find Their Right Job
This website provides career, training, and job search information to job seekers, including various career options and steps to take to obtain a job. The “Students and Career Advisors” section can help students discover their passions, research occupations that might be a good fit, and plan and execute a job search.
Resource: Supporting Success of Youth under WIOA
These technical assistance guides assist collaborations among DOL, ED, states, local workforce development areas, other workforce and education partners, and social service providers with serving out-of-school youth. Specifically, strategies are included in the guides for serving out-of-school English learners, current and former foster youth, and justice-involved youth.
Resource: 2017 Summer Jobs Resources Pages
These lists of technical assistance resources help state and local workforce leaders, youth program practitioners, stakeholders, and partners get prepared to successfully implement high-quality summer youth employment programs. Housed on ETA’s Youth Summer Jobs Community of Practice, these resources come from various entities, but the lessons learned are relevant to any program and can be used to enhance a summer youth employment program.
Resource: Workforce Recruitment Program (WRP)
This program connects federal and private sector employers with college students and recent graduates with disabilities seeking summer or permanent employment. WRP recruiters from federal agencies conduct personal interviews with interested candidates, who are then included in a searchable database that is available to hiring officials in federal agencies. Colleges and universities can apply to host interviews with WRP recruiters, and students and employers can apply to gain access to the database.
Resource: Mental Health Needs of Youth
This webpage, developed by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability, provides multiple resources on the mental health needs of youth, especially as they relate to employment. Youth service practitioners can use this information to better understand the needs of youth, and policymakers can utilize it in their work to address system and policy obstacles and improve service delivery systems for youth with mental health needs.
Share with Youth: TA Series for Youth Practitioners
This technical assistance (TA) series will provide webinars, podcasts, conference calls, and videos for youth practitioners focusing on various Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act youth-related topics.
Share with Youth: CareerOneStop's Video Collection
This video collection depicts a portrait of life for hundreds of careers, highlighting the job responsibilities, work settings, wages, educational requirements, and employment trends for a broad range of occupations.