DC Youth and Young Adult Update 11-27-2024

News at NYEC:

• Join the National Youth Employment Coalition’s 2025 Annual Forum- Empowering Youth, Transforming Communities, in Minneapolis, MN, from May 12-14, 2025! This event will gather practitioners, youth advocates, and community leaders to explore key topics like youth leadership, holistic supports, living wage employment, and policy & advocacy. 
• Join NYEC’s Policy Committee: If you are interested in joining NYEC’s Policy Committee, which helps shape NYEC’s federal policy agenda and provides a forum for policy advocates to share what is working and what isn’t in their communities, please contact [email protected].
• Fill out a 6-month Federal Advocacy Calendar!: Interested in being more engaged in federal advocacy? The hyperlinked title will direct you to a JotForm that lists concrete steps that you can take in the first 6 months of the year to build a relationship with your Members of Congress! NYEC will make it easy to complete each goal of every month by sharing support, reminders, and more!
• Senate HELP and House Education and Workforce Committee Staff Have Reached a WIOA Reauthorization Agreement:
  As we shared last week, Senate HELP and House Education and Workforce Committee staff have reached an agreement on a bipartisan, bicameral WIOA reauthorization bill. Below is a summary of key provisions related to opportunity youth. The bill text and bill summary can be found here and here. Staff expressed that if organizations/individuals are interested in supporting this bill, they should contact Congressional leadership and their Senators. If you need assistance getting contact information for these offices, feel free to email [email protected].
  • Mandates that local boards spend 50% of adult and dislocated worker funds on training (may use up to 8% of said funds on supportive services);
  • Creates the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grant competitive program and provides $65m in mandatory funding for it;
  • Defines “Opportunity Youth” to include youth experiencing homelessness or youth involved in the foster care system, regardless of school status;
  • Shift from 75% of local boards’ Youth Programs funds going to OY to 70% of state boards’ funds (floor of  45% of funds to OY for local boards);
  • Provides a mechanism to consolidate local workforce boards into a single statewide board or consolidate a consortium of local workforce boards into one board;
  • Requires state and local boards to conduct an analysis of the OY population in their respective areas;
  • Allows for the use of self attestation (40 days for programs to retrieve documents); and
  • 40% of Youth Programs funds must be used for youth work experiences and 12.5% within it must be used for youth pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships.