Programs and Services
Youth Today: Back to School
By Karen Pittman, September 2005
September is back to school month. And for the first time in the nation’s history, many communities are beginning to get an accurate sense of just how many high school-age youths will not be picking up their backpacks to return to school.
Forum Focus: Education Pipeline
While the nation’s public systems continue to fall short of delivering equitable educational supports to children and youth, youth workers have spent the last several decades insulating and, in some cases, patching the leaks in the “education pipeline”– a term describing the route students follow from early childhood through post-secondary education.
Forum Focus: What Gets Measured, Gets Done
States and communities across the country recognize that creating a shared set of desired outcomes for young people provides the opportunity to take stock in how well children and teens are doing on national and local levels.
Forum Focus: What's Health Got to Do With It?
For youth workers and youth-serving organizations, making a commitment to improve adolescent health outcomes can be as complex as making a commitment to improving academic achievement. Health, like education, has an entire system behind it.
What Kids Need
The December 2006 issue of State Legislatures Magazine features an article by NCSL and Forum staff entitled “What Kids Need.” This article is a part of our ongoing partnership with NCSL to strengthen youth policy in the states and assist state policy makers with the tools and information they need to make change.
Incorporating Youth Development Principles into Adolescent Health Programs:A Guide for State-Level Practitioners & Policy Makers
The youth development approach has gained traction over the past twenty-plus years, across a range of youth-serving fields, including public health.
Putting Youth Work on the Map
Over the past year, two comprehensive studies of youth workers were coordinated by the Next Generation Youth Work Coalition. Together, these two studies, conducted by the Forum for Youth Investment and the National Afterschool Association, capture the voices and perspectives of over 5,000 youth workers from across the country.
Youth Program Quality Assessment Tools Comparison Chart
Comparison chart of youth program quality assessment tools.
