Senior year of high school can be a pivotal time in a young person’s life. For some, it is the last step on the path to college and work. For others, finding stable employment or attending university after high school is far from guaranteed.Urban Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC, helps students at risk of becoming disconnected from work or school transition to higher education or employment after high school. Through its High School Internship Program, it offers participating high school seniors training, an internship, and mentoring to help them succeed. The Urban Institute recently…
Where and when during childhood and adolescence do people acquire the foundations of financial capability? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) researched the childhood origins of financial capability and well-being to identify those roots and to find promising practices and strategies to support their development. Our new report, “Building Blocks to Help Youth Achieve Financial Capability: A New Model and Recommendations,” illuminates critical attributes, abilities, and opportunities acquired during the years spanning preschool through young adulthood that support the development…
Launched in 1995, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Jobs Initiative aimed to boost employment options for young Americans living in low-income communities in six cities. This report looks at how the initiative’s participating sites approached hiring and retention inequities related to race and ethnicity. Readers will learn the successes and challenges of their efforts to address cultural competence and what strategies the sites developed to expand opportunities for job seekers and workers of color. (Author abstract)
Lack of child care can be a major barrier for low-income parents seeking education and training to improve their job prospects. Aware of this challenge, many local programs are working to meet these families’ needs. We interviewed 17 local programs in 14 states to better understand how a range of actors—including child care organizations, colleges and universities, and workforce development agencies—support these families. These programs’ efforts may spark ideas and offer lessons for other organizations. (Author abstract)
Family Structure and the Economic Mobility of Children explores the relationship between parental marital status and intergenerational economic mobility. Co-authored by Thomas DeLeire of the University of Wisconsin and Leonard M. Lopoo of Syracuse University, the report compares the economic mobility outcomes for children who were born to single mothers, divorced parents, and continuously married parents. It finds that, across the income distribution, divorce is particularly harmful for children's economic mobility in both absolute and relative terms. The report also highlights the striking…
Achieving balance between work and family--especially within a shrinking economy--is challenging for all families. The Obama-Biden plan for families includes several agenda items for supporting low-income and working families, and presents an overall strategy to strengthen families at home, to ensure that all American families can work and care for their children. This white paper notes lessons learned from the Office of Family Assistance Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood demonstration grantees. ICF recommends disseminating information on this ground-breaking work to promote…
This report details the experiences of six two-generation intervention projects in New York City supported by grants from the Foundation for Child Development. The two-generation projects help low-income families gain access to employment-related services for parents, and developmental services such as quality child care and health care for children. Although programs varied, all included voluntary services, used counseling, and had a moderate level of openness to parent input and decision making. Chapter 1 of the report describes recent changes in the welfare system and efforts to develop…
Being a father in this era of changing family structures and converging gender roles means more than bringing home a paycheck or delivering punishment to a misbehaving child. A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that Americans expect dad to be more of a moral teacher and emotional comforter than a breadwinner or disciplinarian. About six-in-ten Americans (58%) say it is "extremely important" for a father to provide values and morals to his children, the top ranked paternal role of the four tested in the survey. Roughly half say it is extremely important for a dad to provide emotional…
Demonstrating the urgent need for broad national action and collaboration between private and public leaders in our communities, The White House Council for Community Solutions released an analysis showing that in 2011 alone, taxpayers shouldered more than $93 billion to compensate for lost taxes and direct costs to support the young people disconnected from jobs and school. At least one in six young adults is disconnected from education and work, according to this report. Projections show that over the lifetime of these young people, taxpayers will assume a $1.6 trillion burden to meet the…
In light of the momentum building to improve the fortunes of young men of color, this review takes a look at what is known about this population and highlights programs that are shown by rigorous research to be making a difference. It first examines the special challenges and struggles of these young men in the labor market, including problems related to their disproportionate involvement in the criminal justice system and their experiences in the educational system. A growing number of young men of color have become disconnected from the positive systems, institutions, and pathways designed…
