Workforce Investment Act: Labor Actions Can Help States Improve Quality of Performance Outcome Data and Delivery of Youth Services

Labor agreed that collaboration with Education would improve the WIA youth program's ability to identify and serve out-of-school youth. As such, Labor partnered with Education. For example, Labor's ETA held a series of Regional Forums that convened state education agencies along with workforce development, juvenile justice, and child welfare agencies from 45 states to align services, create strategies for program improvement, and provide technical assistance. ETA issued guidance to inform states and local areas of its new strategic vision to serve out-of-school and at-risk youth. The guidance encourages state and local workforce systems to partner with Education by connecting dropouts and out-of-school youth to alternative education programs. Conversely, the guidance calls for alternative education institutions to work through one-stop career centers to expose youth to local training programs and career pathways in growing occupations.

Education concurred with this recommendation and partnered with Labor's ETA. For example, ETA held a series of Regional Forums that convened state education agencies along with workforce development, juvenile justice, and child welfare agencies from 45 states to align services, create strategies for program improvement, and provide technical assistance. ETA issued guidance to inform states and local areas of its new strategic vision to serve out-of-school and at-risk youth. The guidance encourages state and local workforce systems to partner with Education by connecting dropouts and out-of-school youth to alternative education programs. Conversely, the guidance calls for alternative education institutions to work through one-stop career centers to expose youth to local training programs and career pathways in growing occupations.

Labor agreed that many local areas face challenges in recruiting and retaining out-of-school youth. Labor has disseminated information from other organizations on out-of-school youth. It provides this information through its Youth Resource Connections, an electronic biweekly newsletter, which directed readers to a training packet on engaging out-of-school youth developed by the School and Main Institute for the Texas Workforce Commission. Additionally, the WIA Performance Enhancement Project assists states and local areas through online training, face-to-face training, and targeted technical assistance. One of the face-to-face training workshops focuses on WIA youth programs and identifies strategies for effective youth program design and delivery.

Labor disseminated information from other organizations on how to provide effective mentoring services. It provides this information through its Youth Resource Connections, an electronic biweekly newsletter, that directed readers to several reports on mentoring by Public/Private Ventures and a training packet developed by the School and Main Institute. Additionally, Labor's ETA continues to gather information and strategies from current initiatives, such as Ready4Work, that contains mentoring components for juvenile detainees to help local areas provide effective mentoring services. The Ready4Work initiative is jointly funded by Labor, Justice, and Public/Private Ventures.

Labor agreed on the need to provide additional guidance to states and local areas on providing follow-up services and using interim measures. Through its Performance Enhancement Project, Labor's ETA provides in-person training workshops on how to design follow-up and retention services. ETA also published guidance in July 2004 that outlined its vision for youth services delivery under WIA, and focused on improving performance through better "real-time" data and management systems. In 2006, ETA issued its common measures policy for all of Labor's employment and training programs. One of these measures is literacy and numeracy gains for out-of-school youth who are basic skills deficient. The assessment tool is administered at program entry and at regular intervals thereafter, thus providing information on youth's progress while they are still enrolled in WIA services and not just upon exit.

Labor's ETA developed a Core Monitoring Guide in 2005 for all its programs. The guide was developed to provide a consistent framework for all ETA on-site grant monitoring responsibilities. The guide includes a requirement to review the grantee's management information system for data validation purposes. In particular, the monitoring official must determine whether the information system includes a data validation process to ensure accurate input of source data, including source documentation. As part of their grant monitoring duties, several ETA regional offices conducted monitoring visits in early 2005 to review data validation files and compare findings against submitted results