DCAYA Budget Advocacy Day on May 11

The District's proposed FY2018 budget leaves significant funding gaps for a number of key programs that could better address the needs of the children and youth we serve every day.

Call to Action: we invite all our members and youth-serving organizations from throughout the District to join us at the Wilson Building on Thursday, May 11 to meet with Councilmembers and staff to advocate for a more youth-friendly District budget for FY2018!

Council markup on the mayor's proposed budget is scheduled for May 16-18, so May 11 is a critical time to reach out to members and remind them of the importance of our budget asks for DC's youth, which include:

• Transportation: $2 million to extend transportation subsidies to adult and alternative learners through the School Transit Subsidy Program
• Youth Homelessness: Up to $3.3 million more to fully fund the Year One objectives of the Comprehensive Plan to End Youth Homelessness
• Expanded Learning: An additional $5.1 million to fund the new Office of Out-of-School Time Grants and Youth Outcomes and better meet the need for quality youth development programming
• Youth Workforce Development: A comprehensive implementation plan for coordinating and funding youth workforce development initiatives to build on the progress of DC’s WIOA State Plan
• Per-Pupil Funding: A 3.5% increase in per-pupil funding in the FY18 budget to bring DCPS closer to an adequate standard for education funding next school year
• Proposed Tax Cuts: Ensure revenue is available to fund these and other critical priorities by delaying the $40 million in estate tax and business tax cuts slated for 2018

On Advocacy Day, we'll walk around the Wilson Building and visit Councilmember offices in teams. A DCAYA staff member will join each team to help support messaging and follow-up.

In order to make the most of your time as we reach out to Council staff, we ask that you RSVP for multiple time slots throughout the day on DCAYA Budget Advocacy Day. After you RSVP, you will also receive an invite to join us on an optional strategy call at 11am on Tuesday, May 9.

Thank you for all you do and we hope to see you on May 11!

And in case you missed it, check out our Actions for Budget Advocacy - Week 4 email.

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Youth Workforce Development Testimony from today's Hearing from Amy Dudas

This morning, the Council of the District of Columbia's  Committee on Labor and Workforce Development had their Performance Hearing for the Department of Employment Services and the Workforce Investment Council. Amy Dudas, one of our Policy Analysts, provided testimony.

***

Good morning Chairperson Silverman, fellow councilmembers and committee staff. My name is Amy Dudas and I am here to testify on behalf of the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates (DCAYA), a coalition of over 130 youth-serving organizations operating here in the District to provide our feedback and recommendations to this committee on DOES and the WIC.

I’d like to open my testimony by acknowledging the continued commitment of both DOES and the WIC over the last year to foster inter-agency collaboration , integrate program design for special populations, and to encourage high standards across the District’s workforce agencies. We have been happy to see continued planning and early benchmarks met in the implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). DOES has laudably enhanced the diversity of its services to special populations of youth, including youth with disabilities.  As the agency continues this important work, we encourage the training of agency staff to ensure that accessibility is maximized and youth disclosure considerations are handled appropriately. Additionally, the WIC should be leveraged in its oversight and coordination role to ensure this more diverse youth portfolio is streamlined and strategically designed across federal and local funding streams in the coming year.  With that, I’d like to turn my testimony to some specific pieces of feedback from 2016 and targeted recommendations for the year to come.

Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program (MBSYEP): 
At a projected investment of $17.1 million for FY16 and serving nearly 14,000 youth, the DOES-administered Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program (MBSYEP) continues to represent the District’s largest investment in youth workforce development, and an important entry point into the District’s broader workforce system.  In highlighting any shortcomings in this testimony, we aim to bolster the improvement plans we know are already underway for program year 2017.

Ensure Quality Placements
DOES continued to identify areas of potential MBSYEP quality improvement in FY16. Selected as a 2016 Summer Impact Hub by the White House, the agency was supported in its goal to secure 1,500 private sector slots for youth with the addition of 23 new participating businesses. Along this vein, DOES must continue to work to cultivate effectively prepared and diverse host sites and recruit future host sites on the basis of quality . We are encouraged to hear that DOES has plans underway to emphasize the development of SYEP curricula with host sites through Host Employer workshops, and hope this strategy will be maximized to ensure consistent quality across all host sites.

Leverage Expansion 
The 2016 SYEP also saw the continued program expansion to serve up to 1,000 youth ages 22-24. DCAYA hopes to see this especially vulnerable population of older youth with self-reported difficulty accessing the labor market connected with appropriate next-step options at the conclusion of this summer opportunity. To maximize the benefit of the MBSYEP expansion to youth ages 22-24, we hope to see the continued emphasis on tracked outcomes in the form of intentional and successful handoffs between SYEP and employment, training and/or education.  Last year, the MBSYEP Summer Report was tremendously helpful in ensuring these efforts were executed to high standards of quality and transparency, and we encourage the continuation of this annual publication as a way to demonstrate progress towards those goals.

Maximize the District’s Investment
Given SYEP’s expansive reach (it serves 60% of DC youth aged 14-21) and cost (almost $17.1 million dollars in local funding), it is imperative that the MBSYEP become an outcomes-driven program with well-articulated roles for all stakeholders. We recommend that the DC Auditor’s evaluations be replicated by a third party expert in program year 2017 to support DOES in reaching these goals . Further, we echo the DC Auditor’s recommendation that DOES can more effectively collaborate with DCPS, the Charters and OSSE to ensure connectivity between the MBSYEP experience, summer bridge programs, CTE coursework and year-round employment opportunities. Some of this planning is included in the District’s Draft WIOA State Plan, but we hope the summer of 2017 will provide the opportunity to further implement these plans.

Youth Workforce Development Programs/ WIOA Youth Programs:

Improve Transparency of WIOA Contracting Process 
In FY16, the District successfully ramped up program enrollment to 207 OSY and 90 ISY participants through the implementation of Human Care Agreement contracting process. While this increased participation marks a turning point in the District’s federally-funded youth programming, it remains unclear which local providers have received contracts to provide these services, how many youth are being served in each program, and if these programs are aligned with the educational and training needs of youth or the District’s growth industries. The Department of Labor will start holding states publically accountable to performance outcomes starting in the summer of 2018, but DOES should be using this interim period to work with the WIC to ensure that quality, aligned and compliant programs are in place. It is also important to note that without a clear, shared vision of how the District’s youth workforce development system should be enhanced over time, providers are unable to make organizational planning and investment decisions  that align with District-wide youth workforce development goals.

Streamline Contracting Process
While Human Care Agreement (HCA) contracts have proven a helpful tool in designing a diverse workforce system from the perspective of the District’s workforce agencies, it is important to acknowledge the challenges they can pose for providers. The HCA process is often lengthy as it moves through multiple phases. To a prospective contractor, deadline windows are usually only a couple of weeks, while waiting for a next step of the process to begin can take months. Though we still think the HCA process is a key tool in the design and responsiveness of the District’s youth workforce development system, we hope to see its administration and timeliness improve into FY17 and beyond.

Utilize WIC Oversight and Diverse Stakeholders to Streamline the Youth System
With WIOA’s emphasis on serving the most vulnerable workers, expanding education and training options, helping disadvantaged youth earn while they learn, and aligning planning and accountability polices across core programs, the District will be required to further alter the design of our current workforce programming. The WIC must be positioned to lead and coordinate the city’s strategic vision for its workforce system, with authority to direct both local and federal funding.

Beyond these top-down stakeholder considerations, it’s also important to emphasize the critical role that youth and youth providers play in bringing unforeseen implementation challenges to the forefront, piloting new strategies, and representing the real-time needs and priorities of the youth. Moving forward, we hope the newly established Youth Committee of the WIC will continue to engage community, business, provider, and youth representatives in its work to maximize the effectiveness and connectivity of the District’s youth workforce development programs. Creating consistent opportunities to understand the decision-making process of government partners, garner the buy-in of diverse stakeholders, and voice concerns can go a long way in building the cohesive, data-driven, and holistic system of workforce development with, and for, youth.

Thank you, and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

***

If YOU have any questions about this, please feel free to email us.

And if you are looking for more ways to involved in Youth Advocacy, as an individual or part of a community based, youth-serving organization, consider joining us in just two weeks at our Youth Advocacy for Action Summit!

And thank you to the following Sponsors who helped make this event possible.

Arts Education Month: 3 Stories of 3 Ways Art Promotes Positive Youth Development

March is National Arts Education Month, and with today's blog, we are highlighting the work of Project Create, a community-based nonprofit that promotes creative youth development through accessible arts education for children, youth and families experiencing homelessness and poverty in Washington, D.C.

At Project Create, we believe that “art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate” (Harvey Fierstein). Arts education complements in-school learning and serves as an important tool for positive youth development. 

We'd like to share three ways in which Project Create incorporates creative, positive youth development into our programming, and the stories of the young people served by each.

1) LUWANN: Art as Education

In the face of the urgent needs of our students, art makes a difference. We believe that “arts education is not a flower, but a wrench” (Rachel Goslins, President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities). 

A study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that at-risk kids exposed to the arts had better academic outcomes, higher career goals, and greater civic engagement. Thus, they contribute more to their communities, achieve more themselves, and have higher aspirations and hope—all from engaging in art! This conclusion is as clear in practice as it is in the research. At Project Create, we notice that our students are trying harder in school.

Sometimes Luwann brings her homework to our after-school open studio; she seeks help with challenging math problems, or asks one of our interns to quiz her on spelling words. When she succeeds at school, Luwann brings her A papers to us to celebrate. It is rewarding to watch Luwann’s growing commitment to her schoolwork. We love it that art is the hook that draws Lawann, a budding illustrator, into the Project Create studio, and once there, she finds the support she needs to succeed at school.

Youth Workforce Development - A Disability in the Workplace Issue

Last Thursday, we hosted our 2nd Intersectional Happy Hour, a quarterly series of events meant to provide an opportunity to dig a little deeper into how the issue areas we work in do not exist in silos. We kicked off this series in November by examining the intersection of Youth Homelessness and the LGBTQ community here in the District.

And last week we continued to explore how issues impacting our young people fit into the larger landscape of issues and trends affecting communities across the District of Columbia, by sharing a bit about how Disability in the Workplace relates to Youth Workforce Development.

Just a last second talk between @amy_dudas & @MaggieRiden for tonight's presentation. We'll be starting in the next half hour. #YWDinDC pic.twitter.com/X2R5ett0Xc

— DCAYA (@DCAYA) February 23, 2017

With only a 10 minute or so presentation, the other main goal beyond being informative was to spark conversation and new connections. We are thankful to those who were able to join us last Thursday, and are especially grateful to the Midlands for providing the space. But in case you weren't able to make it, we wanted to share what was presented, for this week's blog.

The slides will auto-advance every 15 seconds upon loading, but please use the controls at the bottom to go at your own pace.

And as mentioned at the end, please contact Amy Dudas for additional information and resources.

DCAYA's Advocacy Agenda for 2017

This week, we wanted to share our advocacy agenda, going into this year's Performance Oversight and Budget hearings. We've broken down our short term goals for the next year or so by our four main issue areas.

Youth Homelessness

One main goal is to scale up the capacity of our system to serve close to twice as many youth through developmentally appropriate and culturally competent services. To this end, we will be advocating for fully funding the first year objectives in Youth Strategic Plan, an investment of $5.7 million. Not limited to beds and transitional housing, this investment also includes building support for long term prevention and intervention strategies.

Performance Oversight and Budget Hearings Set by Council

The DC Council has approved the schedule for the coming months’ performance oversight and budget hearings. Below we have noted the hearing dates and times that will be of interest to our members and the youth advocacy community, along with contact information for testifying. You can find our resources for advocacy season and advice for writing testimony in last year’s blog.

All hearings are held at the John A. Wilson Building at 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. If you wish to testify, you may sign up here or directly contact the committee staff persons listed below. Some of these agency hearings are held concurrently with other agencies under the committee jurisdiction. You can find the full schedules posted on the DC Council’s website.

Committee on Education - Chairperson David Grosso

To testify: sign up here or call 202-724-8061

Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE)
Performance Oversight: Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 11 am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 at 11 am in Room 120

State Board of Education
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 10 am in Room 123
Budget Hearing: Thursday, May 4, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 10 am in Room 123
Budget Hearing: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 10 am in Room 123

District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL)
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Monday, May 1, 2017 at 11 am in Room 412

District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) - Public Witnesses Only
Performance Oversight: Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500
Budget Hearing: Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500

Public Charter School Board
Performance Oversight: Tuesday, February 28, 2017 at 10 am in Room 123
Budget Hearing: Thursday, May 4, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) – Government Witnesses Only
Performance Oversight: Thursday, March 2, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

Committee on Finance & Revenue - Chairperson Jack Evans

To testify contact: Sarina Loy, sloy@dccouncil.us or 202-724-8058

Commission on the Arts and Humanities
Performance Oversight: Friday, February 17, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at 10 am in Room 123

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)
Performance Oversight: Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500
Budget Hearing: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at 10 am in Room 123

Committee on Government Operations - Chairperson Brandon Todd

To testify contact: Keiko Yoshino, kyoshino@dccouncil.us or 202-724-7774

Commission on Fathers, Men, and Boys
Performance Oversight: Friday, February 24, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Affairs
Performance Oversight: Friday, February 24, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

Committee on Human Services - Chairperson Brianne Nadeau

To testify: email humanservices@dccouncil.us or call 202-724-8017

Department of Disability Services and Office of Disability Rights
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at Noon in Room 500

Child and Family Services Agency
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500
Budget Hearing: Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500
Budget Hearing: Thursday, May 9, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

Department of Human Services
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500

Interagency Council on Homelessness
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

Committee on Labor and Workforce Development - Chairperson Elissa Silverman

To testify contact: Charnisa Royster, croyster@dccouncil.us or 202-724-7772

Department of Employment Services
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500
Budget Hearing: Thursday, May 4, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500

Workforce Investment Council
Performance Oversight: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500
Budget Hearing: Thursday, May 4, 2017 at 10 am in Room 500

Committee on Transportation & the Environment - Chairperson Mary Cheh

To testify contact: Aukima Benjamin, abenjamin@dccouncil.us or 202-724-8062

Department of Parks and Recreation
Performance Oversight: Friday, February 10, 2017 at 11am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412

District Department of Transportation
Performance Oversight: Monday, March 13, 2017 at 11 am in Room 500
Budget Hearing: Monday, April 24, 2017 at 11 am in Room 500

Committee of the Whole - Chairman Phil Mendelson

To testify: email cow@dccouncil.us or call 202-724-8196

University of the District of Columbia
Performance Oversight: Monday, March 13, 2017 at 10 am in Room 412
Budget Hearing: Tuesday, April 11, 2017 at 11 am in Room 123

Watch hearings live here.

And please bookmark this post as well as the calendar on our website.

Youth Summer Jobs Programs: Aligning Ends and Means

This week we’re bringing you a guest post from Martha Ross, a fellow at the Brooking Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. Her newest paper Youth Summer Jobs Programs: Aligning Ends and Means, which she co-authors with Richard Kazis, takes an important look at the intentions and outcomes of summer youth employment programs from a national perspective. Read on for highlights of their work!

Summer jobs programs for youth have experienced an upsurge of investment since the 2007-2009 recession and the associated spikes in unemployment among young people. The well-documented drop in teen and young adult employment rates has raised concerns that it is becoming more difficult for young people to find pathways into the labor market, particularly for African-American and Latino teens living in neighborhoods with fewer job opportunities. Summer jobs programs offer a paycheck, employment experiences, and other organized activities in the service of multiple goals: increasing participants’ income, developing young people’s skills and networks to improve their job prospects, and offering constructive activities to promote positive behavior. The District of Columbia is one of a handful of jurisdictions that retained their summer jobs programs after the loss of dedicated federal funding in the late 1990s with the passage of the Workforce Investment Act.

Summer jobs programs are often one of the most high-profile youth initiatives of a given jurisdiction.  They typically last about six weeks and provide work opportunities to teens and young adults who otherwise might struggle to find jobs. Recent research finds that summer jobs programs have positive effects: reducing violence, incarceration, and mortality and improving academic outcomes.

But a strong program does not automatically follow from good intentions. Program design and implementation carry the day and determine the results. Although the research is encouraging, it is not robust enough to support generalized statements about program effectiveness, and it has not yet conclusively linked summer jobs programs to improved employment outcomes.

Summer jobs programs are complex endeavors to design and deliver within a very compressed time frame. No matter how dedicated the organization and staff operating the program, the demands of recruiting, assessing, placing, monitoring, and paying so many young people at one time are significant. In the absence of agreed-upon standards and best practices, quality is likely to vary considerably—both between cities and within a city, depending on the worksite or partner organization helping to run the program.

In a new paper, Youth Summer Jobs Programs: Aligning Ends and Means, my co-author Richard and Kazis and I assert that we need better answers to some fundamental questions: how much should we reasonably expect from a summer jobs program? For whom are the impacts the greatest? What are the critical program elements to improve a young person’s skills and job prospects?

Based on interviews and a scan of the literature, we identified a core set of practices that support high-quality programs, divided into two categories.

Program design

• Recruiting employers and worksites and sustaining their participation to provide the maximum number of job opportunities.
• Matching young people with age- and skill-appropriate opportunities, differentiating by age, work readiness, and youth interests so that no one goes to a workplace unprepared to succeed.

• Preparing young people to succeed and learn new skills by providing training and professional development on work readiness and other topics, including financial capability.

• Supporting youth and supervisors to maximize learning and development by structuring the job placement and monitoring progress over the summer to address problems that arise and provide guidance to supervisors on working with young people.

• Connecting the summer program to other educational, employment, and youth development services so that the summer program both feeds into and draws from other community resources.

Capacity and infrastructure

• Ensuring sufficient staff capacity and capability to deliver critical program elements at a high level of quality, executing with clear roles, sufficient staff training, and coordination across partner organizations.

• Deploying information technologies to improve program management and communication among partners and participants, including information management systems to streamline enrollment and job matching and to strengthen tracking and evaluation.

• Simplifying coordination and strengthening training through partnership management tools, such as sample job descriptions and assessment tools that help structure the work experience and support youth and worksite supervisors.

We concluded that it is harder than most people think to run a high-quality summer youth employment program and to measure progress towards the goal of helping young people improve their skills and job prospects. We also concluded that it is both easy and unwise to expect too much of a summer jobs program, especially for the most vulnerable and unprepared young people, who typically need more intensive and longer-term services. Ideally, the current wave of energy and investments in summer jobs programs around the country will inspire and empower cities to step back from the day-to-day management of a summer jobs program and assess their program design and organizational capacity against the ultimate goal:  helping young people succeed in their communities and in the workplace.

Leading the Way in Youth Workforce Development!

Last week, DCAYA and our partners at the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) celebrated the graduation of fourteen local professionals from our Youth Workforce Leaders Academy (YWLA). The Academy has run for two years now, and was developed with the support of the Community Foundation’s Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative where the Foundation and a dozen other philanthropic partners are co-investing in programs throughout the Washington region that focus on building local residents’ literacy and workforce skills to support their movement toward greater economic security. Also central to the success of the Academy, YWLA session topic areas and materials were based on the IEL-led National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth’s (NCWD/Youth) Youth Service Professionals’ Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities professional development initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy.

A year-long learning community, YWLA enables DC youth workforce development providers from the nonprofit and government sectors to further their skills, and bolster their organizations with deeper knowledge and resources. Over 10 monthly sessions, the Academy explored the following tenets of high-quality youth workforce development programming: Youth Rights & Policies, Youth Development & Youth Voice, Program Design and Delivery, Career Exploration, Workforce Preparation, Assessment & Individualized Planning, Employer Engagement, Collaboration & Partnership, and Engaging Families. 

DCAYA's Budget Updates: Workforce Development & Disconnected Youth!

While the final vote on the FY17 budget will occur on May 31^st at 10am (watch here: http://dccouncil.us/videos), the Council’s decisions are all but finalized.

Today we’d like to reflect on the work of our members and partners throughout this year’s advocacy season and provide an update on the successes for youth, families, and children within the FY17 budget. This week’s is the first of two parts, focusing on Youth Workforce Development and Disconnected Youth. 

Youth Workforce Development

Maintenance of In-School Youth Program

This spring, DCAYA advocated for the continuation of the In-School Youth Program with available federal funds-- and supplemental local funds if necessary. Under WIOA, federal expenditures for in school programs will be reduced to a maximum of 25% of the District’s total federal allocation of $2.3 million annually. Because the District has significantly underspent federal funds in the last few years, the In-School Youth Program appears safe in FY17. DC’s Draft WIOA State Plan includes a proposed strategy to blend the District’s reduced in school allocation with funding that flows through the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to make all in school youth programs accessible to youth with disabilities. We will continue to advocate for capacity building support within the program’s competitively selected providers to ensure that they have the training necessary to provide quality programming to youth with disabilities. We’d like to thank our members and partners from LAYC, Sasha Bruce, DCFPI and the Young Women’s Project for attending the WIOA State Plan Public Engagement Session to elevate this priority and for testifying at DOES’s budget oversight hearing.

SYEP Expansion and Evaluation

Full Report Available Here

While the FY17 budget includes $4.8M to fully fund the participation of 12,000 youth 14-21 and 1,000 youth 22-24, DCAYA and our partners were successful in ensuring that the continuation of this expansion be tied to the consistent assessment and evaluation of its quality. Earlier this spring, the DC Council added an amendment to Mayor Bower’s Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Expansion Amendment Act of 2016. The amendment limits the expansion of SYEP to the summers of 2016 and 2017 in order to allow Council adequate time to review and assess data regarding the program's expansion during 2015 while working with the Executive to formulate a permanent program that appropriately meets the needs of the targeted populations, including disconnected youth. Additionally, the DC Auditor’s report on SYEP concluded that to meet legislated program requirements moving forward, DOES will have to contract with an external expert to conduct a third-party, program quality evaluation of the program annually. Big thanks are due to Councilmember Silverman and her staff, Councilmembers Nadeau and Allen for promoting the quality and assessment of SYEP, and to DOES’s Office of Youth Programs for working to provide the best possible program to over 13,000 District youth every summer.

Disconnected Youth

Expansion of Kids Ride Free through Age 24

This year, DCAYA advocated for an additional investment of $950,000 to expand the age eligibility of Kids Ride Free through age 24 in order to meet the transportation needs of over 700 youth engaged in alternative and adult education placements. Building on the evidence elevated by Raise DC’s Disconnected Youth Change Network (DYCN), DCAYA designed a survey of re-engaging youth this winter and circulated it through DYCN’s membership. Our findings provided a basis for a cost estimate of our budget ask and highlighted the importance of funding transportation supports to maximize the District’s investments in nontraditional students.

During budget advocacy, DCAYA also supported the ask of the DC Adult and Family Literacy Coalition (DC AFLC) to extend the availability of subsidized tokens to adult education providers to help offset the cost of transportation for their students. While neither of these asks were able to be funded in the FY17 budget, our advocacy did result in the addition of language in the Budget Support Act requiring the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME) to fully assess the transportation needs of the District’s adult and alternative education population by October 1, 2016. Even though our budget requests were not granted by Council this year, we mounted a strong campaign and are certain that our champions on the Council will find the funding next year.

This year’s effort was made possible by the work of Raise DC’S Disconnected Youth Change Network in vetting and circulating our transportation survey, our partners at DC AFLC and Academy of Hope for supporting our ask, the Council’s Budget Office and the staff of the Committees on Education and Transportation & the Environment for working to identify the needed funding, the DME for initiating a Transportation Taskforce earlier this year, and to Councilmember Silverman for including our ask on the Committee of the Whole’s final ‘budget wishlist’.

Maintain Funding for SLED

Throughout the FY17 budget season, the Mayor’s $1.1M proposed investment to keep SLED stable and fully staffed and $11.9M to develop the capacity of the system in capital funds were maintained. SLED continues to play an invaluable role in driving the District’s education system decisions, and also serves as a starting point for the development of a similar approach within the workforce development sector. Many thanks are due to the Mayor, DME Niles, and Superintendent Kang for prioritizing the maintenance of SLED in the Mayor’s proposed budget, and to the Committee on Education for ensuring the protection of these funds through the budget process. We’d also like to thank our partners at Raise DC for spearheading important and insightful educational research that brings the fruit of SLED to bear.

That’s all for now folks! Check back next week for more budget updates on Expanding Learning and Youth Homelessness.

For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook, SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

FY2017 Budget Asks

Today’s blog comes to you as the first installment in our team’s analysis of Mayor Bowser’s proposed DC Budget for 2017. The Mayor’s proposal is now before Council where, through upcoming budget hearings and advocacy meetings, it will be debated and revised by Council Committees before it goes to a vote in May.

In the next few weeks, we'll be providing a deeper dive into each of our budget asks. We encourage you to follow along with our budget asks and talking points, and then join us at the Wilson Building to testify about your particular concerns at DC Council budget hearings.

Transportation Support - $950,000 (Not included in the Mayor’s proposed FY17 budget)

As we highlighted last year, the cost of transportation continues to be a pervasive barrier to the success of older youth (22-24) in re-engaging and maintaining engagement in educational opportunities. Unlike their younger colleagues (ages 5-21), who have access to the Mayor’s signature Kids Ride Free program, older youth must rely on their own, often limited, incomes or the support of their LEAs and programs to cover the cost of transportation. 

Earlier this year, DCAYA conducted a survey in collaboration with Raise DC’s Disconnected Youth Change Network (DYCN), and found that 54% of respondents 22-24 reported spending over $30 a week or $120 a month travelling to and from their programs. Additionally, over half of the older youth surveyed reported spending 45% or more of their weekly income getting to and from their educational programs. 83% of these youth reported spending around one-fifth or more of their weekly income getting to and from their programs; notably 55% of youth spending this much live in Wards 5, 7, and 8. 

An additional investment of $950,000 would ensure that these youth who have overcome multiple barriers to re-engage in their education at a Local Education Agency (LEA) would be able to attend school without the persistent worry of how they will afford to get there. To include the full breadth of youth pursuing their high school diploma or equivalent through District-funded schools (LEAs) and GED programs (CBOs), a total investment of $2.2 million is necessary.

Expanded Learning - $10 million ($4.9 million allocated in the Mayor’s proposed FY17 budget)

The mayor’s proposed budget includes an allocation of $4.9 million to the DC Trust in FY2017, including afterschool and summer community-based programming. As initial allocations go, this is the strongest we’ve seen in years, and when mid-year reprogrammed funds are included, about steady with what overall out-of-school time (OST) grants over the course of fiscal years have been. While encouraging, we see this investment as a glass “half full”.

The DC Trust’s annual share of funding for OST is a direct reflection of the value we as a District place on our kids in the hours after school and in the summer, and that share has declined by more than half from 2010 to the present year, resulting in only a quarter of the locally-funded slots for afterschool and summer learning that were there for kids just six years ago:

If we are serious about providing safe, youth-friendly opportunities focused on improving outcomes and quality of life for all our children now and in future, we must reverse these trends. With a $10 million allocation to the DC Trust for OST programming in FY2017, and a commitment from leaders to the development of a dedicated funding stream, we would be back on track to serve up to four times as many children and youth with quality expanded learning opportunities.

Educational Data Capacity - Maintain the $1.1 million allocated in the Mayor’s proposed FY17 budget

We greatly appreciate that the mayor’s proposed budget includes $1.1 million to keep DC’s Statewide Longitudinal Education Data System (better known as the SLED database) stable and fully staffed. SLED has been a critical tool in transforming the District’s approach to decision-making in education. While SLED on its own is a reliable and useful data warehouse, because of partnerships like those with the college access providers, OSSE staff have already started taking SLED’s utility to the next level – namely, to reach more audiences of education data consumers to create user-friendly tools for more networks and to support the use of SLED for data-driven decision making at all levels.

In addition to the important education research underway hinging on the availability and analysis of data from SLED, it’s also important to note that SLED plays a critical role in the development of a comprehensive and coordinated workforce development system. The District’s Draft WIOA State Plan outlines plans to create a uniform system of intake, assessment, and referrals that is predicated on the maintenance of SLED. As the District moves towards a career pathways approach to workforce development, it’s critical that data on a resident’s educational and workforce experience can be shared across systems and, eventually, be made accessible to providers to streamline the eligibility and assessment processes. As other agencies look to build out on the success of the District’s education database, maintaining staffing levels and quality within the SLED team is key.   We encourage Council to hold this investment stable and ensure full operational capacity of SLED in the years to come. 

Youth Workforce Development - $870,000-$1,000,000 (Maintain FY16 expenditures for in-school youth programming; the baseline amount is still being clarified)

As Latin American Youth Center youth Ademir Delcid shared with us a few weeks back, maintaining school-based workforce development programming is a critical component of the District’s youth workforce development system. Through academic enrichment, exposing youth to work readiness skills, and offering project-based learning, in school youth programming provides workforce development to students to help keep them engaged in high school and prepare them for successful postsecondary transitions.

Under WIOA, federal expenditures for in school programs will be reduced to a maximum of 25% of the District’s total federal allocation of $2.3 million annually. At this funding mark, in school youth services would be significantly reduced. DC’s Draft WIOA State Plan includes a proposed strategy to blend the District’s reduced in school allocation with funding that flows through the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to make all in school youth programs accessible to youth with disabilities. While this is an important step forward for the District in serving youth with disabilities, the capacity of the District's provider community to serve this population well is currently limited, and will require investments in training and technical assistance.  DCAYA believes that current funding for in school programs should be maintained at $870,000, and additional funding should be allocated for capacity building within the District’s in school youth providers to ensure all DC youth have access to high quality and developmentally appropriate in school workforce training. 

Youth Homelessness - $800,000 (2.3 million is included in the Mayor’s proposed FY17 budget) 
(Corrected April 5, 2016. The DHS Budget book incorrectly stated the 2017 enhancement was $3.1 million.)

The mayor’s proposed budget includes $2.3 million in new funding for homeless youth services. Since the passage of the 2014 End Youth Homelessness Amendment Act, local funding for homeless youth services has remained at $1.3 million per year, which in 2014 represented just a 15% increase to homeless youth resources from the budget passed in the previous year. It was a modest increase given the mandates of the Act, but at the time, we still had incomplete data to quantify the actual need. With the start of the annual Homeless Youth Census, we now know more.

The census data makes clear that we’ll need to scale up prevention services in the year ahead, as well as add to our supply of crisis beds and transitional and independent living spaces for youth, if we are to get to the point that actual youth homelessness in the District becomes rare, brief and non-recurring by 2020. We applaud the mayor for recognizing this need and urge the council to adopt a budget that includes this important investment. There will be additional details on the DHS budget in the coming few weeks!

That's all for now! Check back next week for a closer look at our first budget ask: expanded access to transportation supports for re-engaging youth.

Youth Voice: Continue School-Based Workforce Development

This week we’re bringing you the testimony of Ademir Delcid, a student in LAYC’s Guide to Post Secondary (GPS) Program from last week’s performance oversight hearing (3/7) on DOES and the WIC. Currently supported by Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) dollars, programs like GPS are facing significant funding shortfalls under the District’s Draft WIOA State Plan. A reduction in the federal allocation of in-school program funding, the District’s planned emphasis on increasing pre-employment supports specifically for youth with disabilities, and, most importantly, the lack of local dollars to supplement these programs could threaten their continuation. (More on these trends here.) Especially as the District moves towards the creation of a career pathways system, it’s critical to bolster programs like GPS that help youth transition into post secondary education and better jobs. We'll turn it to Ademir to explain why:

My name is Ademir Delcid, I am 18 years and a senior attending Woodrow Wilson Senior High School. I have been a part of The Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) Guide to Post Secondary (GPS) for the past two years. Being a part of LAYC has been a wonderful experience.

Through LAYC, I have improved academically and been given the opportunity to give back. In school, my progress is tracked so that I am passing my classes. If an assignment or anything is missing that may affect my grade, the advisors of LAYC at school make sure that I get the help to understand the lesson/homework through after school tutoring or personal help. I am also getting help with my essays and writing. If I have a writing assignment or college application, they make sure that it has been reviewed and corrected before submission. I have participated in community service events through LAYC. I attended the MLK Day of service and Martha's Table, each one allowing me to give back to those in need. I have also participated in dances that were hosted at LAYC and Wilson, both events allowing people to be entertained and enjoy themselves.

GPS has given me financial help and preparation for college. Being enrolled in the program, I have learned about FAFSA, what to look for in colleges, how to apply to scholarships and prepare for the SAT’s. I am also being paid in different ways, some being: taking the SAT, attendance, CASAS testing, and community service events. With the money I earned, I created a bank account that I have put my money on a debit card. With the help of my advisors I was taught how to save my money, in preparation for college, so that when I do attend college I will have saved up enough to pay for school related items or other needed things. Through GPS, I have applied to over 12 schools and 6 scholarships. I have learned a lot during my senior year and it has prepared me for college.

During my 2 years of being in LAYC, I got to meet a wonderful team of advisors. I was given the opportunity to work with Adriana, Scholastique, Ella, Diana, Alexis and Loren. Meeting them and talking with them made me realize that they knew what they wanted for us students, which was to succeed and be prepared for the next chapter in our lives. Being a senior, I do not have the opportunity to continue working with them, however all that they have done in the short amount of time were worth the little time. Overall what each and every individual in this program has helped not only me but other students achieve is the progression, impact and determination to succeed in and out of school. I have witnessed firsthand how my life has been impacted and I thank each and every member of LAYC GPS for their never ending spirit to see me and others be prepared for college and life. I see each and every individual that have worked with me as more than advisors, they are my family and LAYC is my home.

For more information on how to get involved in advocating for the continuation of in-school workforce development programs this budget season, check out our budget hearing schedule and testimony guide, or reach out to DCAYA's policy analyst, Amy Dudas, at amy@dc-aya.org.

I Would Wonk 500 Miles (Just to Share the WIOA State Plan with You)

Today’s blog will focus on the youth-specific provisions of the State Plan. We hope to be a resource as you develop your feedback and recommendations before the Plan is finalized and sent to DOL. For details on how to engage in State Plan Public Engagement, skip to the end!

Two weeks ago, Mayor Bowser and her workforce team released their draft of the District’s WIOA State Plan for comments before the Plan is sent to the Department of Labor (DOL) for approval by April 1st. Beyond demonstrating the District’s plans to comply with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to the Feds, the State Plan also sets the course to better align workforce stakeholders and programs to create a comprehensive system of workforce development.

In and of itself, WIOA established some significant changes for Title I Youth stakeholders, including:

• Requires that at least 75% of youth formula funds are spent on serving out-of-school youth (up from 30% under WIA, though the District had been spending about 65% of funding on out-of school youth as of 2014[1])
• Expands in-school youth eligibility to include low-income youth (14-21) who are English language learners and those who have a disability.
• Requires that at least 20% of youth formula funds be spent on paid and unpaid work experiences that incorporate academic and occupational education.

Advocacy Season Update: Performance Oversight and Budget Hearings Set by Council

The DC Council has approved the schedule for the coming months’ performance oversight and budget hearings. Below we have noted the hearing dates and times that will be of interest to our members and the youth advocacy community, along with contact information for testifying. You can find our resources for advocacy season and advice for writing testimony in last week’s blog.

All hearings are held at the John A. Wilson Building at 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. If you wish to testify, you may sign up here or directly contact the committee staff persons listed below. Some of these agency hearings are held concurrently with other agencies under the committee jurisdiction. You can find the full schedules posted on the DC Council’s website.

Resources for Advocacy Season

It’s that time of year again, when the Wilson Building becomes abuzz with councilmembers and advocates meeting over issue areas, testifying at hearings, and deliberating on budget priorities. The DC Budget Season is particularly exciting though, because this is a time when community members can provide valuable input into how your city spends your tax dollars.

At the same time, these next few months can be a bit confusing, so we wrote this blog to help answer any lingering questions and offer resources to understand the DC Budget Season and how you can be involved.  Check back throughout the rest of January and February - we'll be detailing each of our asks in the next few weeks; as well as sharing key dates and other ways you can get involved!

A Bumpy Road to Self-Sustaining Employment: Paving the Way for Homeless Youth

As a continuation of our participation in Youth Homelessness Awareness Month, we'd like to take this week to highlight an important intersection of two of DCAYA's Issue Areas: Youth Homelessness and Youth Workforce Development. For many youth in the District and across the country, experiencing homelessness for short or extended periods of time can add significant barriers to their ability to connect to and thrive within workforce development programming. This week we're joined by guest blogger Amy Louttit from the National Network for Youth to elevate the challenges homeless youth experience in accessing workforce development opportunities and to highlight some areas of potential progress for this vulnerable population.

Barriers to Employment for Youth Experiencing Homelessness

The barriers that youth who are experiencing homelessness face when trying to access jobs and career pathways are diverse and profound. At the front end of the process to engage in the employment and workforce training necessary to be self-sufficient and seek affordable housing options, many of these youth lack the basic required documentation. A result of the transiency of their lives in general, as well as the fact that many of the minors do not have a parent or guardian to sign necessary documents, many homeless youth lack access to the social security cards, birth certificates and/or state issued identification cards needed to enroll in programs or complete required tax forms. While many of these documentation hurdles cannot be avoided (social security and identification verification are ubiquitously required to work), some programs have recently made it more difficult for youth experiencing homelessness to participate. For example, JobCorps recently reversed a long-standing policy that had allowed unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness to participate without parental signatures. When we consider that Runaway and Homeless Youth programs are the best places to link disconnected youth to employment, it becomes imperative that we focus on minimizing documentation hurdles for youth who lack the stable relationships necessary to safely obtain such signatures and paperwork.

Other youth experiencing homelessness are able to access jobs, but lack the supportive services required to help them continue to develop the life skills needed to maintain employment. The cost of transportation, lack of mentoring support, and healthcare needs are frequently cited as barriers. Without including supports to counter these pervasive barriers to employment for youth experiencing homelessness, these young people are much less likely to sustain their engagement in workforce training or on-the-job experience. The detrimental effects are twofold. Youth are unable to stick with the programs or jobs that are providing them with much-needed experience, training, and income. And employers on the other end of the equation experience a confirmation of perceptions that youth employees lack the ability to demonstrate reliability, persistence, and work appropriate self-advocacy skills.

Areas of Workforce Access Opportunities for Homeless Youth

In July of 2014, President Obama signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) into law as part of a Federal effort to fill in the gaps youth face when navigating the workforce while gaining stability. This Act which governs programs such as JobCorps and other Youth Formula Funded programs attempts to encourage local labor to engage with "disconnected youth"-- those who are not enrolled in school and are disconnected from supportive services. In many instances, the disconnected youth population is currently experiencing homelessness or has in the past. 

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently collected public comments on regulations authorized by WIOA. While the Federal requirements were intentionally structured to minimize barriers to workforce and labor for unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness, some local communities are prescribing higher barrier documentation and eligibility requirements. Youth experiencing homelessness up to 24 years of age are particularly in need of programs that aid them in identifying and training for a career pathway. 

The programs funded by the DOL under WIOA are built to achieve just this goal for disconnected youth. However, at the local level some communities have instituted such requirements as passing "entry exams" to these programs. Entry exams are usually used to assess a young person's literacy and numeracy skill levels, but they can often be used as cutoff points for program eligibility. For example, many programs will not accept students who cannot perform at 8th grade literacy and numeracy levels for fear that youth will not be able to efficiently perform necessary workplace duties. These entrance exam barriers are particularly troubling for unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness because they are likely to change schools frequently. Such school mobility interrupts their education and often results in large gaps in their literacy and numeracy skills and often contributes to a young person's ability to persist through traditional pathways to high school completion. 

Understanding that delayed academic achievement is one of the underlying causes of youth disconnection, we must do better to incorporate basic skills education with workforce development training if we expect our disconnected youth to sustain engagement in school and work. Conversely, where these youth are unable to access WIOA programs, such as JobCorps, it is far more probable that they will be trapped in the cycle of poverty and homelessness due to lack of education and skills.

The Federal Government is making strides toward filling in gaps and reforming laws. Meanwhile, youth-serving organizations and their partners are capitalizing on opportunities to advocate for better policies and watching for the WIOA final rules to be published. In the interim, States are beginning to develop plans with their funding under WIOA and local partners should look for opportunities to educate local policymakers about the unique issues unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness face. Together we can help to fill in these gaps and end the challenge of youth homelessness.

Amy Louttit is the Public Policy Associate at the National Network for Youth. We thank her for highlighting critical disconnections between the youth workforce development and youth homelessness fields. 

For more information on DCAYA's efforts to address the needs of homeless youth in DC, reach out to Senior Policy Analyst Joseph Gavrilovich (joseph@dc-aya.org). 

Making the Most of My Summer with AALEAD!

This blog post was written by a District of Columbia youth, Ellen, who has been an active participant with Asian American LEAD for over ten years.  Asian American LEAD (AALEAD) is a regional non-profit organization that supports low-income and under-served Asian Pacific American youth with educational empowerment, identity development and leadership opportunities through after school, summer, and mentoring programs.  Ellen is a rising 10th grade student at School Without Walls High School in Washington, D.C.  

While many other youth around the nation are spending their summer break enjoying activities such as swimming, vacationing, attending camps, visiting relatives, or playing sports with their friends, I have chosen to spend my summer working for an organization that is very important to me, called Asian American LEAD.  Many times people ask me, “What does AALEAD mean to you?” I often reply that AALEAD is like my second family. From the time that I started participating in AALEAD in kindergarten until high school, I have had many experiences with AALEAD that have helped shape me into who I am today. There have been a lot of inspirational figures in AALEAD who have left a mark in my life.  They have also inspired me to do the same for my fellow AALEADers.

This brings me to the topic of this summer and why I decided to work with AALEAD. The primary reason is that I want to help younger youth in the program and provide them with opportunities similar to what I had when I was their age. Going through my childhood memories, one of the most delightful and inspirational memories I had was spending time with the high school students in AALEAD.  While I was in elementary school, I took advantage of the many workshops and activities the high school students led for me, which I always found to be very fun and engaging.  

I personally think this summer program has been a great advantage for the younger youth in AALEAD because although I had experience with high school youth and their workshops, they didn’t cover the topic of transition from elementary school to middle school. As the oldest sibling in my family of three children, I wish I had people who went through the experience before me who could tell me what to expect. Since I wasn’t able to get this knowledge when I was transitioning from elementary school, I wanted to give back to those after me so that they could have this type of benefit.

Not only was this summer program a great benefit for the elementary school youth, I also gained something from the experiences that I had leading workshops. I gained memories with the youth that will last a lifetime, and I have also improved upon my leadership skills. Before this summer, I was the quiet and reserved person who was always sitting in the darkest corner of the room and never eager to get out of my own comfort zone. However after this summer, I was able to find leadership skills in me that I never thought I had. Now, I am more open and comfortable talking to people I just met.

In addition to helping younger youth this summer, the AALEAD program introduced me to resumes, cover letters, and elevator speeches. My high school peers and I also did career exploration which led us to explore different careers in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).  We focused on arts & technology, service & technology, and entrepreneurship & technology during our program.  This allowed me to visit many different places like Union Kitchen, Torpedo Factory, and Verizon to learn about career experiences and what a work place is like. I have learned many things this summer from how to develop an effective presentation and how to how to write a resume. 

If AALEAD didn’t have a summer program like this I wouldn’t have done anything with my summer. Memories would not be created for me, and I would not have gained anything from sitting at home and spending time on my electronic devices.  I am grateful for the experience of having been a part of the AALEAD summer program as not only a participant and an employee, but also as a leader.  

DCAYA would like to thank Ellen for sharing her experience with AALEAD. If you'd like to learn more about the services and supports provided by AALEAD be sure to visit their homepage today!