Community Councils and the Transitions Between Education and Work.

A change is needed in the present arrangements for the transition of youth (ages 14 to 20) from education to work to improve their access to roles which aid in occupational maturity. There are a number of components to an improvement effort and, within the components, there are alternative approaches such as starting with a process rather than a program. A community collaborative process (community education-work councils) among the institutions and individuals that have the responsibility, resources, and influence to deal effectively with the school to work transition process should be established. There needs to be some systematic research of the council concept as a broad collaborative process at the community level and its effect on the school to work transition of youths. A project hypothesizing that collaboration among specified institutions will lead to a set of actions that will provide enlarged opportunities for the occupational maturity of youth can be designed by using the National Manpower Institute's (NMI) pilot effort to increase collaboration at the community level as an illustration. This research project will involve the testing of five subhypotheses evolving from NMI's effort that represent the expected outcomes of the collaborative process. (In addition to discussing the state of the art of community education-work councils in dealing with the youth transition from education to work, this paper also addresses briefly the use of such councils in the transition of adults from work to education.) (EM)