Career Pathways to Success

Summary

A Growing Disconnect Between School and Work

Young people today face longer and more complex journeys as they transition from school and into the workforce. These journeys often offer too few opportunities for young people to bolster their work experience while earning family-sustaining wages. They’re also marred by clear barriers to employment and upward mobility for certain youth (such as those with justice system experience) and include a confusing patchwork of programs and initiatives that make accessing support difficult.

These challenges have resulted in a significant number of young people, ages 16 to 24, being out of school and also unemployed.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation invests in efforts to equip young people who are disconnected from school and work with the credentials and experiences needed for successful careers. These efforts seek to better align and integrate youth services across systems and include support for high school reconnection and completion; postsecondary education; industry partnerships; and job creation and social enterprises.

Key Investments

Over the past decade, the Casey Foundation has supported three long-term initiatives:

1. Generation Work helps young adults in eight cities connect to high-quality jobs while aiding employers in attracting and retaining a wider pool of qualified talent.
2. Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™ increased employment and educational opportunities for youth and young adults who have experienced foster care, the criminal justice system or homelessness.
3. The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship, a multi-funder push to promote high-quality youth apprenticeship programs to help more young people secure stable, well-paying jobs.

The Foundation also has invested in employment social enterprises, such as REDF and Juma Ventures, that connect young people with paid employment opportunities to grow both their skills and work experience.

Lessons and Strategies

Several factors challenge efforts to forge quality career pathways for young people who are not in school and also unemployed. These include:

• Separate funding streams for school and work systems;
• Too few opportunities to merge resources to improve program delivery;
• Mismatched rules and access points across the systems that connect young people to careers.

The Casey Foundation has identified six key lessons — along with specific policy and practice strategies — to guide education, workforce development and human services partners in making meaningful progress. These lessons are:

1. Align systems to knit together a web of connected education, training and employment opportunities.
2. Strengthen ties among organizations to link services.
3. Build education and career pathways and help young people navigate them.
4. Develop new and flexible models of service delivery, such as accelerated education programs, remote or in-person service options and competency-based learning formats.
5. Help young people meet their basic needs like housing, clothing, food, transportation and child care.
6. Support funding for systemic change. Philanthropic institutions can support this objective by building connections between policy advocates, practitioners and young workers; supporting states and localities as they bridge fragmented education or employment systems; and convincing employers to rethink hiring, onboarding and ongoing support for young workers.

Challenges and Limitations

The Casey Foundation has also identified five key factors that can erode the capacity of public systems to support youth employment. These challenges are:

1. Barriers to creating flexible programming and partnerships with educational institutions.
2. Limited engagement among employers and education and training systems.
3. Differences in organizational culture and practice.
4. Limited sustainable funding for supportive services.
5. Limited coaching and support to help young people make decisions about education and job opportunities.

Maximizing Success

Policymakers, educators, nonprofits and funders must work together to build sustainable paths for young people to attain viable careers, ensuring that both young people and practitioners have a voice in shaping new solutions.

Such strong partnerships have been key to Casey’s mission of fostering career opportunities for young people transitioning from high school to higher education and the workforce. Cultivating cross-sector partnerships and prioritizing youth-centered approaches can make programs and services more effective, inclusive and responsive. The Foundation will continue to invest in bold strategies that meet young people’s basic needs while also expanding proven pathways, such as apprenticeships and flexible employment programs.