Pre-apprenticeship programs are a very effective tool to help youth and adults enter a Registered Apprenticeship program. Participants can also use the experience to pursue further training or enter the workforce. The pre-apprenticeship is designed to help youth or adults take a snapshot of their current skills and use that data to address gaps in…

The qualitative case study reported on here was commissioned and funded by the Western Cape Government (WCG) in partnership with the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC) to inquire into attributes of well performing after-school programmes (ASPs) within the Western Cape provincei of South Africa. The research question of the study was: What…

In 2011, The Wallace Foundation launched the National Summer Learning Project (NSLP) to expand summer program opportunities for students in urban districts and to study the effectiveness of district-led summer programs and how they could be well implemented. Through the NSLP, The Wallace Foundation has provided support to public school districts…

The East Durham Children's Initiative (EDCI), a partnership among local government, nonprofit, faith, and school organizations, is focusing on the community's most promising resource--its children--in order to restore the city to the thriving African-American middle-class community it was throughout much of the mid-20th century. Since 2008, EDCI…

The first national youth fitness evaluation conducted in the United States was in 1958. Since that time, schools have continued to administer fitness evaluations using a variety of tests with no national-level assessment of youth fitness [Institute of Medicine (IOM), 2012]. However, in September 2012, the Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP)…

This report focuses on the seven original Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) projects selected for funding in 2003. Three of the original seven projects were selected for a national random assignment evaluation in 2005; however, this report only focuses on program operations prior to joining the random assignment evaluation for the three…

This overview of an evaluation of prime sponsor implementation of the Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act (YEDPA), offers an interpretation of ten case study findings. It is divided into four principal parts. The first, "Summary of Findings and Recommendations," summarizes findings about local programs implementing YEDPA and…

Using a synthesis of available literature written between 1960 and 1977, the study reported in this document focuses on the assessment of (1) employment and training services for youth; (2) techniques which have been used in providing employment and training services to youth; (3) administrative practices which have either enhanced or vitiated…

Intended as a general blueprint for monitoring and assessing activities under the Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act of 1977, this document discusses the expected constraints, evaluation and assessment tools, the analytic framework, and monitoring and review schedule. Five problem areas are recognized as potential constraints in…

Some programs for helping at-risk youth achieve excellent results, while others do not. One reason for program success can be proper management. Mentoring is a promising strategy for helping at-risk youth. Planners who want to create effective mentoring programs should look at the implementation experiences of other youth programs. Evaluations…

This Digest argues that management factors are central to youth program successes and failures and that these factor have been ignored in research on youth programs. Instead, the Digest notes that research and evaluation of programs have focused on the following: (1) whether the right audience is served; (2) whether to make incremental…

For 9 years ending in 1986, the Canadian government sponsored a national youth volunteer service program called Katimavik (an Inuit word meaning "meeting place"). During its existence the program shared several characteristics with many youth corps in the United States: it served youth between the ages of 17 and 23 regardless of family…

There are certain elements that are common among effective mentoring programs. This article describes MENTOR, an organization that serves as a resource and advocate for youth mentoring. MENTOR developed its first mentoring Elements of Effective Practice in 1990 by working with a national panel of mentoring experts. "They are research- and…

Established in April 1983, the San Francisco Conservation Corps (SFCC) was the nation's first youth corps program to be exclusively urban and nonresidential. Other unique aspects of the SFCC include its funding mix, emphasis on discipline and productivity, and diverse group of corpsmembers. The SFCC features physical work done in crews under close…

This monograph provides a narrative summary of ideas and thoughts gathered from two mini-conferences held to discuss the Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act of 1977 (YEDPA) as it relates to career education. The conference participants included eight representatives of Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) prime sponsors and…