Next Engineers Overview

Next Engineers inspires young people to pursue engineering through hands-on activities, skills development, and career coaching. Funded by the GE Aerospace Foundation, the $45 million, 10-year program equips young people with the tools and the opportunity to advance along the pathway towards a career in engineering.

FHI 360’s team of education and workforce development experts designed programs to propel students towards further engineering education, developed a library of teaching and learning materials, and currently manages a network of organizations worldwide that delivers these programs alongside GE Aerospace and GE Vernova volunteers.

Second chances: Career coaching leads to fresh starts in Kentucky

For Second Chance month, we spoke to Olivia Murphy, who serves as senior career coach (and now youth program manager) for The Spot: Young Adult Opportunity Center in Louisville, KY. The story highlights how KentuckianaWorks navigates the challenges of life after incarceration, and how their impact encourages people to embrace second chances.

Read the full story to learn more.

Honoring the Past to Empower the Future: Trauma-Informed and Healing-Centered Approaches to Caring for Youth in the Criminal Justice System

Honoring the Past to Empower the Future reviews the landscape of holistic and inclusive approaches to trauma-informed and healing-centered care for youth as implemented by tribal governments and organizations. Approaches that incorporate medicinal practices and cultural values, focus on the healing power of empathy, draw on the wisdom of elders and spiritual leaders, and embrace the rehabilitative potential of community engagement help to promote an environment of healing, recovery, and growth. Read the article to learn more.

Institute for Work and Learning Apprenticeships

FHI 360’s IWL Apprenticeships bring together experts in workforce development to expand existing nationally registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs), such as the Youth Development Practitioner Apprenticeship (YDPA) and develop new opportunities within the care economy such as youth services, peer support, substance-use counseling, and mental health counseling.

Upon completion, apprentices receive a nationally recognized credential from the U.S. Department of Labor. Read the fact sheet to learn more.

Breaking the Cycle: How Two YDPA Apprentices Are Healing Their Communities

“To me, that’s the biggest message with this apprenticeship — this is the perfect way to learn how to change lives.”

As we celebrate National Apprenticeship Week 2024, we highlight two Lake County Youth Development Practitioner Apprentices who use their work to break the cycles of trauma and heal their communities: Luis Garcia Jr. and Jenessa Armstrong. Click here to read about their journeys in becoming the person they wanted to have in their corner growing up.

Women in STEM2D: Let’s Learn about Heart Health

Students try a variety of activities to learn about how the heart works, including seeing how much blood the heart pumps (and how fast!), measuring their pulses, learning which foods are heart-healthy, and seeing what happens when arteries get clogged. Find these activities and more on STEM2D.org.

Becoming Career Ready

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has developed a list of 8 key career readiness competencies that individuals can use as guidelines to prepare for success in the world of work. A competency is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. Being career ready means that you have these skills or core competencies and can apply them in real world work scenarios as you manage your career over time. Read Becoming Career Ready for a snapshot of each of these competencies and ways in which you can enhance and advance your development of each.

An Innovative Approach to Developing Talent for Youth-Serving Employers

FHI360’s Youth Development Practitioner Apprenticeship program offers employers the opportunity to recruit and train employees while giving back to the community and filling their talent pipeline. YDPA targets both existing professionals and opens options for new professionals with lived experience in the communities they serve. Occupations include youth service intake counselors, outreach workers, or justice reentry case workers among others.

NIWL Annual Review 2021: Navigating Through Turbulence

This annual review summarizes the work and accomplishments of the National Institute for Work and Learning across the areas of college and career readiness, workforce development, and research and evaluation. It references major projects, publications and events, and uses data to demonstrate outputs and, where possible, outcomes. The review also mentions new work won and our agenda for 2022.

Going the Extra Mile: A Case Study of Rural Reentry in Arkansas

Going the extra mile: A case study of rural reentry in Arkansas provides an exploration of a rural community in southeast Arkansas that takes a unique, individualized approach to reentering young adults ages 18-24. The received wisdom on rural reentry is that it is generally more difficult than reentry in an urban setting. Phoenix Youth and Family Services, which serves a rural part of Arkansas, has excelled on key outcomes as part of FHI 360’s Compass Rose Collaborative (CRC)1, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Labor to improve the education and employment outcomes of young adults,
ages 18 through 24, after involvement in the U.S. criminal justice system.
Phoenix Youth and Family Services provides wraparound support services to its participants to help juveniles, young adults, and families secure a safe, healthy, and strong life