Agenda, Scope, and Goals
Generation Work focused on helping young people in their first decade of adulthood (ages 18 to 29) who had not yet found their career path. The initiative explicitly took a systems-level approach to change. Rather than create a new, separate program to address issues related to unemployment among young people of color, for example, the initiative asked key workforce organizations and systems (training programs, funders, government agencies, employers, trade unions) in each locality to form a partnership to change the way existing organizations and agencies interact with and serve young adults.
Generation Work partnerships were expected to serve the young people by better aligning the education, training, and support services across organizations; addressing structural barriers related to race and ethnicity that young people face; and weaving into the system best practices around employer and youth engagement (deeper connections with employers and positive youth development, respectively). The Casey Foundation piloted Generation Work in five metropolitan areas: Cleveland, Ohio; Hartford, Connecticut; Indianapolis, Indiana; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington.
The evaluation of Generation Work has three major goals:
- To build knowledge on how the partnerships were able to change their systems and the services they provide to young adults
- To examine the strategies the partnerships used to infuse a racial equity lens into providers’ work with young adults and employers
- To document how young adults experience programs that firmly have in place both strong employer practices (such as sectoral training strategies) and strong youth development practices, such as coaching and individualized attention.
While it was hoped that the evaluation would be useful to the partnerships, the ultimate purpose of the study is to inform the field. Findings will be of interest to a wide array of funders, policymakers, and practitioners who wish to increase the job opportunities for young adults and will provide guidance to other entities who wish to achieve similar changes.
