By Joan Crigger
January 12, 2004

On January 9, Kansas City (MO) Mayor Kay Barnes welcomed nearly 60 workforce board directors and their youth staff who were meeting for two days to share ideas on what's next for Youth Opportunity Grant communities.

As federal funding for the Youth Opportunity (YO) Grant program draws to a close, U.S. Conference of Mayors Workforce Development Council board members Conny Doty, Boston, Terry Hudson, Houston, and Robert Sainz, Los Angeles, asked the Conference to bring together the YO workforce directors, mayors' workforce staff and youth staff to talk about the YO successes, lessens learned and positive next steps for disadvantaged out-of-school youth programs.

Also on the agenda was a strategic discussion on new policy directions for disadvantaged youth and discussion on alternative funding sources to continue the work in the current YO communities. The recently released report from the White House Task Force on Disadvantaged Youth, which does not appear to break any new ground in working with disadvantaged youth, was also a topic of discussion.

The Youth Opportunity Grant program was authorized in the 1998 Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to make a significant attack on concentrated poverty and unemployment for out-of- school youth. The U.S. Department of Labor provided funding to 36 communities across the country — 24 urban and 12 rural — for a five year period to develop innovative, site-based education and job training for out-of-school disadvantaged youth.

The meeting was jointly sponsored by The U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Center on Education and the Economy with the support of the Kansas City Full Employment Council, Inc. Presenters included Georgetown University Professor of Public Policy Harry Holzer; Linda Harris, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy; Jeanne Bates, Vice President of the Hall Foundation; Elizabeth Danforth, Community Relations Manager from the Kansas City Power Light Company/Great Plains Energy; David Brown, Executive Director of the National Youth Employment Coalition; Stephanie Beckerman, Communications Manager of the Kansas City Full Employment Council, Inc. and Steve Corona, President of Job Works, Fort Wayne (IN).

Communities represented at the meeting were: Baltimore, Boston, Brockton (MA), Buffalo, Denver, Detroit Dumas (AR), Hartford, Houston, Kansas City (MO), Los Angeles, Louisville, Lumberton (NC), Memphis, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, and Tampa.