While most youth successfully transition to adulthood, many youth become disconnected from school and work, or social supports, and experience challenges in making this transition. Some of these youth are more likely than others to remain low-income, to lose jobs during economic downturns, and to engage in criminal activities, antisocial behavior, and teenage parenting. No single estimate exists on the total number of disconnected youth because of varying definitions, distinct time periods from which data are drawn, and the use of different data sources. However, researchers’ estimates of the number of disconnected youth range from 2.3 million to 5.2 million. Disconnected youth encompass a broad population that may include high school dropouts, homeless and runaway youth, incarcerated youth, or youth who have aged out of the foster care system. Youth of different races and ethnicities are represented among this youth population. However, research studies show that African-American males constitute a disproportionate share of the population. For example, many young African-American males experience high incarceration rates, and African-Americans are generally overrepresented in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Many young women also become disconnected to assume parenting responsibilities. In addition, the risk of disconnection is particularly high among youth with emotional disturbances and learning disabilities, many of whom have not mastered basic literacy skills. These youth have higher dropout rates and poorer employment outcomes than other youth. To assist youth transitioning to adulthood, direct services are provided at the local level with the support of federal, state, local, and private funding sources. A range of local entities, such as community-based organizations and charter schools, in urban and rural communities nationwide, provide services to reconnect these youth to education and employment. Multiple federal agencies play a role in providing funding and assistance to local programs that serve disconnected youth. The White House Task Force for Disadvantaged Youth identified 12 federal agencies that fund over 300 programs that assist local communities in serving disadvantaged youth in some capacity. However, four agencies—the Departments of Labor, HHS, Education, and Justice—play a primary role and contain some of the largest youth-serving grant programs in terms of funding. Despite having distinct missions, these four agencies share the common goal of reconnecting youth to education and the workforce, and each works to accomplish this goal by administering multiple programs. (See table 1 for a listing of key federal grant programs that serve disconnected youth.) Labor’s workforce programs provide funding for both workforce training and education services for youth up to age 24, including youth involved in the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems, school dropouts, and homeless youth. HHS’s grant programs serve runaway and homeless youth up to age 21 or youth who have aged out of foster care or are likely to age out. These grants fund local programs that have education and workforce components, and also assist youth in connecting to housing and long- term support networks. Education’s various related grant programs focus on youth who are homeless; neglected, delinquent, or at risk; out of school; or incarcerated in a state prison within 5 years of release or parole eligibility. The programs facilitate youths’ enrollment and success in school and vocational programs. Justice’s grant programs serve those youth 17 and under who are involved in or at risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. Grant programs administered by Justice aim to help youth make the successful transition out of the juvenile justice system and on to education and workforce pathways. In total, these programs received over $3.7 billion in appropriated funds in 2006. Labor’s Job Corps program accounted for almost half—$1.6 billion— of these appropriations, and its WIA Youth Activities accounted for nearly $1 billion. Some of the programs serve a broad subsection of youth, including some who may not be disconnected per our definition, such as young adults over 24 and in-school youth. See appendix III for more information on key federal grant programs’ eligibility criteria and purposes. Federal youth-serving agencies distribute funds to locally operated programs through varying mechanisms. Some programs first provide funds to states, which are then passed to local units of government or programs. For example, Justice awards formula grants to states that can be used to fund projects for the development of more effective juvenile delinquency programs and improved juvenile justice systems. Juvenile justice specialists in each state administer the funding through subgrants to units of local government or local private agencies in accordance with legislative requirements. Similarly, Education, through the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, Title II of WIA, awards funds to local eligible providers through state education or labor agencies. Much in the same way, Labor allocates WIA Title I funds to states, which in turn distribute much of this money to their local workforce investment boards. These boards then award competitive contracts to youth providers. Other federal grants, such as Labor’s YouthBuild program and HHS’s Transitional Living Program are awarded through a competitive process in which local organizations submit grant proposals directly to the federal agencies. Federal agencies also provide technical assistance and guidance to local programs. For example, to support programs that receive WIA funds, Labor provides online training courses through a contractor, including Web-based, interactive seminars and tutorials. Labor also provides targeted technical assistance to help local areas most in need by assisting them in identifying and correcting issues that are negatively affecting performance outcomes. Similarly, a training provider and a technical assistance provider assist HHS’s Transitional Living Program grantees nationally by helping them to develop new approaches to serving youth, access new sources of funding, and establish linkages with other grantees that have similar issues and concerns. These providers also track trends, identify and share best practices, and sponsor conferences and workshops. To assist local programs in identifying successful program models, Justice maintains a database with information on evidence-based prevention programs that serve at-risk and court-involved youth across the country. All four federal agencies require local programs to report on their progress with youth by collecting data on youth outcomes, such as attainment of their General Educational Development (GED) credential or job placement, and some of these outcomes are tied to financial sanctions and incentives. For example, HHS requires Transitional Living Program grantees to record each youth’s living situation, physical and mental health, and grade completed when the youth exits from the program, among other data elements. Sometimes data must pass through an intermediary agency such as a state education agency or local workforce investment board, and these entities may require additional data from programs for their own monitoring purposes. The federal programs collect this information to monitor the progress toward goals, and to ensure that local programs are serving the targeted population and spending money appropriately. Federal agencies may also affect local programs by setting specific penalties for programs or states that do not meet certain goals or benchmarks. These mechanisms are intended to encourage a high level of performance and accountability. For example, Labor negotiates performance goals with states for WIA Youth Activities, and if states do not meet 80 percent of those goals for more than 2 years in a row, monetary sanctions may be imposed. However, Labor offers states technical assistance after the first year when requested by states, and relatively few states have actually been financially penalized. States are also eligible to receive performance incentives if they exceed certain performance levels. The 39 local programs we reviewed received funding from a range of government and private sources, and differed in their program structure, yet shared some specific characteristics. The programs we reviewed received funding from federal, state, local, and private sources, and all but 6 programs received some federal funding. Some federal funding sources required programs to follow a specific model or offer a standard set of services, while others allowed programs to use funding more flexibly. The programs also varied in their program structure. For example, some were community-based organizations that provided services on a daily basis, some were charter schools, and some offered residential living. Within these different program structures, some programs also targeted their efforts to specific youth subpopulations, such as court-involved youth. Yet despite these differences, programs shared some characteristics. For example, all of the programs we reviewed were created to meet the needs of local youth such as addressing youth homelessness and high school dropout rates. Most of the programs had also operated for several years, and provided ancillary services in addition to employment and educational assistance to address the multiple needs of their youth participants. The 39 programs we reviewed received funding from a variety of sources, including federal, state, local, and private sources. Eleven of these programs reported that their funding primarily comes from federal sources, and nearly half received a combination of federal, state, local, and private funding. All but 6 of the programs in our review received some federal funding. Figure 1 summarizes the sources of funding for the local programs we reviewed. In some cases, federal funding sources may require programs to follow a specific model or offer a standard set of services, and in other cases federal funding can be used more flexibly. For example, all of Labor’s Job Corps centers feature campus-like settings with youth housed in dormitories and a similar model for guidance and support at all sites to help youth achieve long-term employment. Similarly, HHS’s Transitional Living Program grantees are required to offer a specific set of services, either directly or by referral, to youth in their programs, including instruction in budgeting, housekeeping, menu planning, food preparation, and parenting. By contrast, Education’s Adult Education Grants, which serve both adults and out-of-school youth ages 16 and older, support workplace literacy services, GED instruction, family literacy services, or English-language learning programs and can be delivered by public schools, community colleges, libraries, or other providers. The 39 programs we reviewed structured their services to youth in different ways. For example, some programs were community organizations that provided specific training for youth at their organization during the day. Some were established as charter schools, and some were residential programs, most often providing transitional housing to homeless and/or runaway youth.