For more than 35 years, the federal government has been working with states and communities to enhance the skills and abilities of our nation's workforce. More than 100 federal education and training programs, administered by 14 federal agencies, have been established since the enactment of the first federal job training initiative. In recent years, the federal government has encouraged states and communities to coordinate the administration and delivery of their education and training programs with the aim of developing a comprehensive workforce development system. The purpose of coordinating these disparate programs into a workforce development system is to provide every youth and adult with a seamless progression of opportunities to upgrade their skills, and in turn, to provide employers with the skilled workers necessary to be competitive in the global economy. One of the greatest challenges facing those striving to develop workforce development systems is to restructure and improve programs targeting youth.
Strategies Establish human resource investment councils.
Many states have created human resource investment councils to establish objectives, policy, and strategies for comprehensive workforce development systems. The councils' collaborative planning and review processes promote information sharing and leveraging of resources among the different programs and agencies. Many of the councils also monitor and evaluate program performance, and some have the authority to review program budgets. According to a 1996 National Governors' Association survey, twenty-nine states have created councils and eight others are in the process of doing so. To help adapt state workforce policies to local areas, thirteen states have authorized regional or local workforce councils that correspond to state-level councils.