Making Connections: Youth Program Strategies for a Generation of Challenge. Commendable Examples from the Levitan Youth Policy Network. Policy Issues Monograph.

This document profiles nine youth programs, illustrating concepts, strategies, and lessons available to communities as they start to form an integrated network of essential services designed to prepare out-of-school youth for success in the job market of the 21st century. "Introduction" (Marion Pines) lists considerations when planning a service system for out-of-school youth. "Youthbuild" (Dorothy Stoneman, Fatma Marouf) reports on a comprehensive youth and community development program focusing on core issues facing low-income communities. "Youth Service and Conservation Corps" (Kathleen Seltz) provides an overview of today's conservation corps. "The Center for Employment Training" (Andrew Forbes) describes a program offering an innovative approach to vocational training."Strive" (Lorenzo Harrison) profiles a program to prepare, train, place, and support inner-city youth and young adults in long-term employment experiences. The Quantum Opportunities Program (Benjamin Lattimore) discusses an experiment that tested the impact of coordinated services on youths from families receiving public assistance. "Job Corps" (Mary Silva) reviews the lessons learned from Job Corps programs. "Youth Fair Chance" (Pamela Smith), "The Community Change for Youth Development (CCYD) Demonstration" (Bernardine Watson), and "Early Findings from the Kulick Youth Opportunity Area Demonstration for Out-of-school Youth" (Andrew Sum, Neeta Fogg, Sheila Palma) report on three programs that were based on long-term approaches and provided comprehensive, integrated systems of services to teens and young adults in high-poverty areas. (MN)