Pathways for Youth
Federal Coordination
Coordination at the federal level is essential for supporting and improving outcomes of youth, particularly disconnected youth and those at risk of disconnection. Federal agencies have been working together to develop an overarching framework for collaboration to address the needs of all youth, to create common standards for looking at evidence and evaluation reviews, and to emphasize the importance of evidence to support policies and programs and build a stronger evidence base.
The Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs (Working Group) is comprised of 13 federal departments and 12 federal agencies that support activities focused on youth. The Working Group solicited a wide range of stakeholder input and drafted Pathways for Youth. The three overarching goals of the plan are: 1) promoting collaboration and coordination, 2) encouraging the use of evidence-based and innovative strategies, and 3) promoting youth engagement and partnerships.
This slide set includes a draft framework for evidence standards, which was developed by an informal working group of participants from the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor. The presentation includes a framework for evidence and evaluation reviews, general categories of evidence standards, reporting and review guidelines, and ratings and scoring systems. Learn more about the framework by viewing Exploring a Cross-Agency Platform for Judging Evidence: Resources for Federal Agencies (PDF, 10 pages). This document builds off of a set of slides developed by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation that is focused on education. Learn more by viewing Common Standards for Education Research and Development Proposals: NSF and the U.S. Department of Education (PDF, 25 pages).
The federal government is placing a stronger emphasis on evidence and the need to build the evidence base to support its policies and programs. Learn more about six key federal social policy initiatives that award funds for evidence-based program models or evidence-informed practices. These tiered evidence initiatives build on existing evidence by supporting replication of models with strong evidence, validating promising approaches, guiding adaptation of strategies to new areas or populations, and testing innovative models. All of the initiatives include strong evaluation components.
