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National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth Publications

Career Planning Begins with Assessment: A Guide forProfessionals Serving Youth with Educational and Career Development Challenges. This Guide was developed because adolescents and young adults need guidance and encouragement from caring, supportive adults to successfully transition from school to adult life and the world of work. It serves as a resource for multiple audiences within the workforce development system dealing with these issues. The Guide includes information on selecting career-related assessments, determining when to refer youth for additional assessment, accommodations, and legal and ethical issues in testing, as well as sample forms and tools for customized use and is just one of the many products being developed by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth), which assists state and local workforce development systems to better serve youth with disabilities. Copies of the Guide are available for free by download in either PDF or HTML formats from the NCWD Web site, http://www.ncwd-youth.info, or in hard copy or CD-ROM by e-mailing, faxing, or writing Vincent Slatt, Project Associate, Institute for Educational Leadership, 4455 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 310, Washington, DC,20008, slattV@iel.org, or 202-872-4050 (fax).

Strategies for Youth Workforce Programs to Become Employer-Friendly Intermediaries
This brief focuses on how youth-serving organizations can become more effective as intermediary linkages between youth and employers by adopting certain practices. This brief offers basic employer -friendly strategies that will assist intermediaries and their representatives in making productive connections with employer customers that can result in successful work experiences for youth. Increasingly, state and local workforce boards and their youth-service-providing partners are realizing the need to assess their capacities and strategies to link with and provide supports to employers.
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Youth Development and Youth Leadership in Programs
This brief describes how administrators and policymakers can use the concepts of youth development and youth leadership in developing and administering programs that serve all youth and activities specifically geared toward youth with disabilities. The brief is based on a longer paper, Youth Development and Youth Leadership, A Background Paper, published by The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth.
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IDEA Revised
After three years of intense debate and compromise, America's federal statute governing special education has been revised, enacted and, for the most part, will take effect July 2005. Congress finished work on the revisions to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in late November, 2004, and President Bush signed the legislation, known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, on December 3, 2004. This publication offers a summary of some of the major provisions in the new law.
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Disability Inquiries
This publication is for those working in One-Stop centers as well as youth and adult service providers who interact with individuals with disabilities. It is designed to help clarify what you can and cannot ask about someone's disability.
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Making the Connections: Growing and Supporting New Organizations: Intermediaries
The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) of the US Department of Labor (DOL) is testing a new organizational strategy - intermediary organizations. By aligning and brokering multiple services across institutional and funding sources, intermediary organizations can play an important role in improving employment outcomes for youth with disabilities while at the same time assisting employers in meeting their need for qualified skilled workers. This brief is for policymakers and program managers at the state and community level that are involved in developing intermediaries.
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