COVID-19 and disconnected youth: Lessons and opportunities from OECD countries

Aims: This paper highlights how the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has amplified economic instability and health risks for disconnected youth and young adults (YYA). We offer a brief review of governmental policy responses in four OECD countries and how they may impact the disconnect YYA within those countries. Methods: Literature was reviewed utilizing Cochrane Library, ERIC, PsychINFO, PubMed/MEDLINE and Web of Science to outline existing inequities among disconnected YYA and COVID-19 economic and health impacts. Government responses to COVID-19 from four OECD countries were reviewed. Using the social protection model, we highlighted significant policy changes and developments that influence the protection of vulnerable populations and evaluated the potential effect of long-term economic dislocations prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Disconnected YYA suffered significant financial and health burdens with no social protection floor in place. Lessons learned prior to and during the pandemic indicate that initiatives aimed at improving health and well-being among vulnerable YYA and their communities must be adequately funded, flexible, and comprehensive. Attempts to connect or reconnect YYA who were disconnected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic will require a re-envisioning of policy. Conclusions: Globally, governments must invest in social safety net programs that focus on supporting those most at-risk. A concentrated focus on job creation, education and training, and paid work experience, investments in early childhood care and education, housing, health and mental health care is necessary to not only offset the pandemic’s effects but also support thriving in the future for YYA.

Challenges and Solutions in Evaluation Technical Assistance During Design and Early Implementation

This case study discusses two federal grant initiatives and the evaluation technical assistance (ETA) provided to the grantees. One program is a multiphase program funded by the Children’s Bureau (CB) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. The program funded communities interested in preventing homelessness among youth and young adults with child welfare histories. The funder, grantees, and ETA provider call it Youth At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH). Six federal agencies—the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services—supported the second initiative known as Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3). We discuss the programs together as they share common features including a focus on building evidence, a focus on disconnected youth, use of liaisons to work with grantees who are developing interventions and planning or conducting evaluations at the same time, and having the same liaisons provide ETA to both the grantee/service providing group and the local evaluator. The article discusses (1) the grant programs, (2) details about ETA including its funding and provision, (3) details about the success and utilization of ETA, (4) benefits of ETA, and (5) balancing program or initiative requirements and evaluation needs and concludes with (6) thoughts on how to make ETA successful.

The Economic Opportunity Gap

This chapter explores the demographic trends in the United States of youth for whom youth social entrepreneurship may be most important, those framed by the Opportunity Gap, conceptualized by the field of education to better explain outcome disparities for youth of color and/or from low-income families. Academic disciplines and the nonprofit sector have embraced this framework and furthered it by identifying the youth “haves” and “have-nots” depending on their access to opportunities of many kinds: educational and economic among them. Youth without, or with fewer, opportunities tend to also lack connections of many kinds that can inhibit their educational, employment, housing, and health outcomes. This, then, is the central concern of this chapter: how can youth social entrepreneurship be part of the solution for disconnected youth?

Moving Beyond Academics

The U.S. high school dropout rate continues to decline. Possible reasons for this decline include stronger academic standards, persistent state and district actions, and implementation of programs to help disconnected youth reconnect to educational opportunities. In the current study, we propose a complementary hypothesis for rate improvements: adult capacity. When adults nurture, socialize, and teach youth, youth are more likely to achieve academic and life success. Likewise, neighborhoods need enough adults to provide these relationships. Using the Decennial Census data (1970-2010), we examined whether an increase in the adult-to-youth ratio in a neighborhood covaries with a reduction in the status dropout rate. We find that a 1% increase in the ratio is associated with a 1% decrease in the dropout rate. The effect is substantially greater in predominantly Black or African American neighborhoods and higher income neighborhoods. Policy implications are discussed, specifically how the adult-to-youth ratio could be increased.

Necessary but Insufficient: How Educators Enact Hope for Formerly Disconnected Youth

This qualitative study investigated how educators in urban second-chance high school settings made sense of their work with formerly disconnected youth. Using Duncan-Andrade’s framework of critical hope, we examined how adults’ orientations toward hope shaped the educational context in ways that were necessary and sufficient for student success. Findings from this study highlight the need for more critical approaches to student engagement, specifically for students most affected by systems of marginalization. Implications for urban educators and the institutions that prepare them are discussed.