Operationalizing Changes to the Title I Youth Program Under WIOA

Data for this report are drawn primarily from site visit interviews, conducted in early 2019, with administrators, board chairs and members, employer and agency partners, and frontline staff in 14 states and 28 local areas. Other sources of information include administrative data and relevant state and local documents. The site visit locations were purposively selected to assure diversity geographically and in size, among other criteria. The WIOA Title I youth program is a comprehensive employment program for eligible youth, ages 14–24, who face barriers to education, training, and employment. Services are delivered either by competitively selected service providers or by state or local youth program grant recipients. WIOA youth services are required to be accessible via American Job Centers (AJCs). The program is national in scope, with each state receiving a formula allotment out of the total amount allocated for youth program activities, which in program year (PY) 2019 was $903,416,000. WIOA made a number of significant changes to the Title I youth program, including:

• Increasing the amount of program funds required to be spent on out-of-school youth to 75 percent, up from the 30 percent required under WIA.
• Adding a requirement to spend 20 percent of youth program funds on work experience activities.
• Making changes to the program's accountability system.
• Increasing the emphasis on partnerships with other WIOA core programs.
• Adding five new program elements, including:
• Education offered concurrently with and in the same context as workforce preparation activities and training for a specific occupation or occupational cluster.
• Financial literacy education.
• Entrepreneurial skills training.
• Services that provide local labor market and employment information about in-demand industry sectors or occupations, such as career awareness, career counseling, and career exploration services.
• Activities that help youth prepare for, and transition to, post-secondary education and training.
• Eliminating the Workforce Innovation Act's requirement that local workforce development boards have a youth council.

Sample Findings: Perspectives on changes to the Title I youth program

• Shift from serving in-school youth to serving older, out-of-school youth. The most noteworthy change, from the respondents’ perspective, was WIOA’s requirement that states and local workforce areas spend at least 75 percent of youth program funds on out-of-school youth.
• Concerns regarding in-school youth. Many respondents were concerned that spending 75 percent of program funds on out-of-school youth created a gap in services for in-school youth.
• Greater focus on work experience. WIOA’s requirement that local WDBs spend 20 percent of their non-administrative youth program funds on paid or unpaid work experience was noted by youth program respondents from 8 states and 16 local areas as leading to a number of changes to the program. Chief among those was that work experience had become a more common service, especially for out-of-school youth.
• Provision of youth services by local boards. All 16 local boards included in the site visits that had competitively procured youth service providers under WIA continued to do so under WIOA.
• Access to youth services at AJCs. Most but not all youth staff continued to be housed in AJCs, as they were under the prior law. Consequently, youth programs had no difficulty meeting WIOA’s strengthened requirement that all one-stop partner programs provide access to their services at AJCs.

Sample Findings: Common challenges and strategies for implementation

• Recruiting out-of-school youth. Strategies: Use of new referral partners; intensive community outreach; reduced outreach to in-school youth; and use of social and traditional media.
• Retaining out-of-school youth in WIOA services. Strategies: Intensive case management; provision of supportive services; use of social media to communicate; and providing incentives to achieve milestones.

Major Recommendations:

• Develop a stronger understanding of how to recruit and serve out-of-school youth, especially practices related to serving youth with significant barriers.
• Access waivers that allow states and their local areas to spend less than 75 percent of youth funds on out-of-school youth.
• Improve understanding of the credential attainment measure and allowable credentials.
• Leverage effective strategies and best practices for collaboration between Title I youth programs and TANF agencies.
• Support continued research on the WIOA Title I youth program.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2020
• Author(s): Dunham, K.; Mack, M.; Grey, C.; Hancock, M.; Holcomb, P.; English, B; Roemer, G.
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies