The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Recovery Act) used various strategies to redress unemployment challenges experienced by disadvantaged youth. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) in the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) received $1.2 billion for youth training and employment services. ETA allocated about $17.8 million of these funds to Indian and Native American (INA) youth through the INA Supplemental Youth Services Program. INA grantees were encouraged to use these funds to provide employment experiences to youth in summer 2009 and summer 2010. INA grantees responded by building on existing summer youth employment programs to extend services to additional youth, including older youth, and create new program components as appropriate and needed.

This report describes the context in which programs for the INA Summer Youth Employment Initiative were created and provides a detailed discussion of how grantees used their Recovery Act funds to implement programs to serve youth in their communities. The analysis is based on INA grantees’ performance measure data and qualitative data collected during site visits to a purposive sample of five diverse grantees in five states. This report also highlights key findings and innovations grantees made to better serve youth.

 Other reports related to Recovery Act summer and post-summer youth employment initiatives:

ETAOP 2012-02: Using TANF Funds to Support Subsidized Youth Employment: The 2010 Summer Youth Employment Initiative

ETAOP 2012-03: Beyond a Summer Work Experience: The Recovery Act 2009 Post-Summer Youth Employment Initiative