Young Adult Talent Development Network

JFF launched the Young Adult Talent Development Network to address the urgent question of how to grow a cohesive field of young adult talent development at a sufficient scale to meet employers’ needs and satisfy the aspirations of young adults.  With this mission, members of the network which includes young adult leaders, come together to share emerging strategies and innovations from their practice and explore critical topics that define the most pressing needs and opportunities of supporting young adults entering and navigating their early careers. We are focused on three strategic goals:

– Develop field standards to guide community-based young adult training providers in understanding how to operationalize a dual customer approach that meets the needs and interests of young adults and employers, influences business practices, and prepares young adults or a changing labor market.

– Build the evidence base of what works, by enhancing and elevating best practices and innovations in field-leading organizations and identifying the most promising tools and resources for young adult talent development.

– Change the narrative to portray and position today’s young adults who are seeking a foothold in the labor market as the productive American workforce of tomorrow.

In the last few years, employers have begun to recognize the need to reach deeper into the talent pool to meet their talent needs. However, the supply falls far short of the demand for high-quality demand-driven programs that provide the core skills employers seek and skills of particular industries in specific sectors.

The urgent question today is how to go from a small number of promising programs to a cohesive field of young adult talent development at sufficient scale to both meet the needs of employers and satisfy the aspirations of young adults.

The leaders in the Young Adult Talent Development Network have enthusiastically endorsed the critical need at this moment to develop the field of young adult talent development so that effective practices become commonplace in communities across the country.

Our Young Adult Talent Development Network has developed field standards that community-based providers of training to young adults can use as guideposts for efforts to implement dual-customer approaches that meet the needs of both young adults and employers and also influence business practices and prepare young adults for a changing labor market.