NCJ Number
114978
Date Published
1988
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Certain groups of youth experience special difficulties in sharing society's benefits and must struggle against great odds to become educated, employed, and self-sufficient.
Abstract
These include those with disabilities, those living out of their homes, rural youth, and those from concentrated poverty neighborhoods in inner cities. For youth with disabilities, there is a need for increased support of independent living programs, hiring incentives for employers, restructured benefit packages to eliminate disincentives to work, and expanded use of disabled adults as role models and mentors. For runaways and those in foster care, there is a need for intensive family preservation models that provide sufficient services and individualized casework to protect children, maintain families, and prevent out-of-home placements; decriminalization of running away and improved data collection on homeless youth; and increased focus on independent living models, added-chance employment, training, and life skills opportunities, expanded social services, and increased involvement in economic and social development planning efforts. Finally for disadvantaged inner-city youth, there is a need for flexible, comprehensive, coordinated, and individualized services beginning early in life, including parenting, education and training, transitional, and employment programs. 104 footnotes.