Sponsors (15)
The bill expands targeted, safer mentoring and workforce-readiness supports for high-need youth and provides evidence to guide program improvement, but it increases compliance and operating costs for community providers and relies on multi-year evaluations that may delay or limit broadly applicable changes.
Students and eligible youth (including low-income and rural youth) gain access to federally supported mentoring and workforce-readiness programs that improve academic achievement and career outcomes.
Low-income and high-need youth in high-poverty, rural, or violence-impacted communities are prioritized for grants, increasing targeted support where needs are greatest.
Participating youth gain workforce development skills (career exposure, internships, financial literacy, entrepreneurship), which can increase employability and career readiness.
Community-based organizations and nonprofits face increased administrative burden from three-year limited grants, reporting, and evaluation requirements, creating recurring reapplication needs and straining capacity and continuity.
Grantees incur higher operational costs for required background checks, training, and data collection, which can reduce funds available for direct services to youth.
Prioritizing entities already serving high-need youth may disadvantage newer or smaller organizations, limiting local innovation and the ability of new providers to launch services despite community need.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Adds a WIOA-based authority to authorize and define federal support for youth mentoring programs and requires a Labor Department study on program effectiveness within 3 years.
Introduced January 28, 2025 by Janice D. Schakowsky · Last progress January 28, 2025
Creates a new federal authority within the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to support youth mentoring programs and sets a federal purpose to help eligible secondary-school youth develop cognitive and social-emotional skills and prepare for high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce. It defines key terms and eligible entities for mentoring programs but does not itself appropriate money. Directs the Department of Labor’s Chief Evaluation Officer to carry out a study—due to Congress within three years—identifying effective mentoring programs and practices, assessing mentors’ roles in cognitive and social-emotional development, and evaluating the new mentoring program authority’s effects on academic and career outcomes.