[July 20, 2021] The National Youth Employment Coalition announced the hiring of Dr. Mary Ann (Mimi) Haley to serve as its new Executive Director.  The announcement follows an extensive national search to lead the organization. In her role as Executive Director, she will work closely with the Board to realize NYEC’s strategic goals and vision, including enhancing the value of member experience, growing membership, broadening fund development, and strengthening the voice of young people in NYEC’s work and in the national conversation and policies that affect them. 

[June 21, 2021] For over a year, NYEC convened a working group of members and partners to discuss recommendations for the reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA). Thomas (NYEC's Senior Advisor) even testified about these recommendations at a May 2021 congressional hearing. Our proposal contains bold recommendations including embedding social capital, a priority population framework, mental health/trauma and better performance measures. 

[May 13, 2021] The House Education and Labor Committee conducted a hearing on Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Reauthorization: Creating Opportunities for Youth Employment. Thomas Showalter, Senior Advisor to NYEC, made the case for bold action on youth employment via reauthorization of WIOA. Over the past year NYEC has convened several national organizations to recommend both technical and structural changes to WIOA as well as call on Congress to address youth disconnection during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

[May 6, 2021] As a part of the recovery package proposed by the Biden Administration, NYEC calls on Congress to include an equity-centered national subsidized employment program. The American Jobs Plan presents more than an opportunity to rebuild America’s economy; it offers an opportunity to redress deep seated racial inequities and invest in our nation’s infrastructure, community development, and care economy. By targeting and prioritizing historically oppressed communities in publicly-funded employment opportunities, we can create pathways to opportunity to those whom this nation has systemically excluded. 

[April 30, 2021] NYEC released our latest report from the The Translating Adolescent Brain Science (TABS) project. The report details how several youth workforce agencies approached integrating three approaches that are informed by the science of adolescent brain development: executive skill development (ES), positive youth development (PYD), and trauma-informed care (TIC), collectively referred to as EPT approaches. 

The National Youth Employment Coalition, with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has released Job Training for Youth with Justice Involvement: A Toolkit. The toolkit will help leaders and practitioners in both the juvenile justice system and workforce development system collaborate to effectively serve youth with justice involvement. This toolkit, directed at practitioners and leaders in the juvenile-justice system and others with limited familiarity with the workforce development system:

• Outlines evidence-based practices in youth workforce development,
• Provides an overview of the workforce system funded under the federal Workforce
  Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA),
• Makes recommendations for how to make WIOA-funded services work better for
  youth with justice involvement at the local level, and
• Lays out some key steps to forming effective interagency partnerships. 

Now more than ever our communities, workforce systems, and youth need bold solutions in the face of an unprecedented downturn caused by the outbreak of COVID-19. NYEC along with several national organizations that advocate on behalf of and with Opportunity Youth have come together to craft shared recommendations for the next phase of federal action to respond to COVID-19.

NYEC is convening several national partners to craft a set of principles and model policies for how to engage opportunity youth in the growing green economy. We are working to launch a coalition throughout the country that will build on existing dialogues around green jobs, environmental awareness, and workforce development. Visit our website here.