Latin American Youth Center

Good morning Madame Chairwoman and members of the D.C. City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today at this Public Oversight hearing on strengthening youth employment programs in the District of Columbia.

Employment opportunities for both in-school, out-of-school and disconnected youth are vital to the overall health of our city and I’m excited that this committee is committed to strengthening the city’s programs in this area.

I’m wearing a three different hats today. I’m here as Executive Director of the Latin American Youth Center, which has more than 30 years of experience working with in-school and out-of-school youth to provide a broad range of education and employment opportunities.

I’m also here in my capacity as co-chair of the Workforce Investment Council’s (WIC’s) Youth Investment Council and as co-chair of the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates (DCAYA), a coalition of more than 50 youth-serving organizations in the city.

Through these different roles, I’ve had wide exposure to the many youth employment programs – both federally and locally funded -- that the city has operated for years. And I’d like to say right at the outset, I’m proud to live in a city that makes summer youth employment a real priority and provides summer jobs for 11,000 youth. That’s an important commitment.

As co-chair of WIC’s Youth Investment Council, I’m looking forward to the opportunity we have to revitalize the council so that it can help define a citywide strategy for creating more and better employment opportunities for our young people.

As you know, the Workforce Investment Council (WIC) is mandated by the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). WIC’s vision is clear and important: to develop a more prepared and competitive workforce that meets employer needs and strengthens our communities and families.

It’s no secret that WIC’s Youth Investment Council has been dormant for quite some time. But today there is a new sense of energy and excitement on the council about how we can more effectively connect our youth-focused work to WIC’s broader education, employment and economic development goals.

Gerry Murphy from the Washington Automobile Dealers Association, my co-chair on the council, and I are optimistic about the opportunity for WIC’s Youth Investment Council to: serve as a convener; advocate for better coordination of youth programs; look for best practices in youth development and training; and advocate for more effective use of resources.

Just this past week, we had 40 people from across the education, philanthropic, advocacy, non-profit and government sectors attend a Youth Investment Council meeting.

Coordinating and aligning the many different agencies and entities that provide youth employment and training programs and services in the District has to be a top priority -- and I can tell you that it is a top priority for the Youth Investment Council.

I’d like to shift to my role as Co-Chair of DCAYA. DCAYA recently outlined its policy agenda. Our focus is on three areas, positive youth development, youth housing and youth employment. I would like to begin by stating that DCAYA fully endorses the recommendations in the Youth Action Research Group (YARG) report. The young people who developed this document will share the results of their research later in this hearing.

In the area of youth employment, we have three specific recommendations:

1) Increase DOES appropriations to support at least 460 year-round workforce development slots for out-of-school youth and at least 200 additional in-school slots.

2) Strengthen the quality of summer and year-round job training opportunities through collaboration between DOES and private, nonprofit and public employers that identifies job placements which are entry points to career pathways in high-growth sectors.

3) Expand on the Brookings report to conduct additional research on the employment and placement needs of youth between the ages of 16-24 in collaboration with Deputy Mayor Reinoso’s “Disconnected Youth Committee,” which is also undertaking a research effort at this time.

Now I want to make a couple of observations, based on my experience as the Director of the Latin American Youth Center.

In 1995, LAYC began offering the YouthBuild program, providing construction training, community service, and a GED curriculum to youth who have dropped out of school. It was very successful, and in 2005, we converted our YouthBuild program into a public charter school.

Today, YouthBuild Public Charter School is thriving, with 60 students, who split their time between classroom instruction toward a GED and learning valuable construction skills, gained while building affordable housing for low-income residents in DC.

The recent Brookings Institution report, “Reducing Poverty in Washington, DC and Rebuilding the Middle Class from Within,” highlighted the power of the YouthBuild model to reconnect youth who are disconnected from school and work.

That report recommended investing $13.3 million in community service employment programs over the next seven years, with YouthBuild as the best practice model. Such an investment, according to the study, would serve 667 participants.

We know that YouthBuild works. By providing a line-item in the city budget for YouthBuild, we can ensure that this proven model, combining community service, classroom instruction and construction training, reaches youth in our city who very much need it.

Finally, I want to make five points about youth employment programs in the District.

1) DOES should fully embrace an intermediary approach which would improve the quality of jobs and result in better overall experiences for young people. LAYC has worked with DOES to offer SYEP for more than 25 years. Last year, for example, we had more than 180 youth participate. What we’ve seen is that the program works best when there are intermediary agencies like LAYC that work with the young people to place them in jobs rather than relying on DOES to make the placements.

2) Workforce Investment Act (WIA) dollars are insufficient to ensure we have solid employment opportunities for young people. As a city, we need to do more to supplement the federal dollars we receive to ensure that we can offer meaningful employment opportunities year-round, for both in-school and out-of-school youth. The city used to fund year-round and after-school employment opportunities for youth under the Youth Employment Act (YEA). That legislation may still be on the books and could be refunded in the coming year.

3) The one-stop system does not work for youth. A new system, using key anchor community sites, could be developed. The non-profit community, utilizing Youth Opportunities dollars tried to get this off the ground, but the former staff at DOES did not champion this vision and let it fall through the cracks.

4) DOES must pay special attention to the needs of language minority youth and youth at risk of gang involvement.

5) Focusing on the summer months is not enough. Currently, the city provides just 230 year-round workforce development slots for out-of-school youth, way below the need. We have to figure out a way to increase or at least double that number in the coming year.

I commend you for taking a hard look at what can be done to strengthen employment programs for youth and I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify here today. We are at a very exciting moment with new leadership at the top, a revitalized Youth Investment Council, a strong and engaged advocacy community and exemplary youth development organizations with expertise in youth employment. We must work together to ensure that our city’s young people are literate, career focused, and gainfully employed in meaningful opportunities.

###