Federal Workforce Pathways for Youth grantees announced, leveraging afterschool to support skill-building young people

Earlier this fall, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the award of nearly $20 million in Workforce Pathways for Youth demonstration grants to six national organizations that provide workforce development and training programs to youth after school and over the summer. The grants will help the organizations partner with state and local organizations that serve youth in need, ages 14 to 21, including Native American youth. Through the partnerships, these out-of-school-time organizations will provide workforce readiness programming to expand job training and workforce pathways for youth, including soft skill development, career exploration, job readiness, work-based learning opportunities and work experiences.

The recipients of the Workforce Pathways for Youth grants are as follows:

The announcement marks the fourth cohort since 2021 of national organizations supporting youth workforce development in local afterschool and summer learning programs through the Department’s Workforce Pathways for Youth (WPY) program. The program allows out-of-school time organizations to partner with local workforce boards and youth-serving organizations, bridging the gap between their existing activities and the need to expose youth to career-related services to better prepare them to enter the workforce.

Of note, one of this round’s selected organizations, the STEM Next Opportunity Fund, a national nonprofit and leading expert in out-of-school time (OST) STEM education, will be working closely with four statewide afterschool networks to support the launch of its Exploring Career Connections in STEM (EC²) Initiative. The Missouri AfterSchool Network, Beyond School Bells (Nebraska), South Carolina Afterschool Alliance, and South Dakota Afterschool Partnership will work with more than 500 youth ages 14-21 across 40 local OST program sites. This initiative integrates afterschool and summer programs into workforce development systems as a model to address the rapidly growing demand for skilled workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) across the United States. It also aims to provide rural and underserved youth stronger career pathways to high-demand jobs with high wages in biotech; healthcare; manufacturing; youth development; education; and professional, scientific and technical services (PSTS) industry sectors. The EC² Initiative places a special emphasis on workforce readiness for rural youth, with most program sites located in rural areas. Sites in Nebraska and South Dakota will specifically serve Native and Indigenous communities. In addition, 9,000 younger youth in out-of-school-time STEM programs will benefit through career exploration activities delivered by EC² youth trainees.

The Workforce Pathways for Youth Program was authorized by Section 169(c) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the Department of Labor Appropriations Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-94), however the program would be made permanent and expanded to younger students if it were to pass as part of current proposed bipartisan legislation, the Youth Workforce Readiness Act (S 454/HR 3416). The legislation, first introduced in 2019, would create a competitive grant program through the Department of Labor to support collaborations of national youth-serving out-of-school time organizations, schools, businesses and other partners in establishing workforce readiness programming for youth ages 6-18.

More information on the Department of Labor’s Workforce Pathways for Youth programs, including information on applying for the fifth round of grants, can be found on their website.