Introducing Youth Disconnection and Opportunity Youth to Policymakers: A Menu of Metaphors
by Thomas Showalter
Reconnecting Youth Campaign (RYC) partner organizations have advocated with and on behalf of Opportunity Youth (OY) since 2017. With over hundreds of meetings with policymakers, we’ve tried out and refined different ways of introducing the OY population, talking about the problem of youth disconnection, and explaining the benefit of programs that serve OY.
What follows are a few things that we have learned.
The Context: A Disconnect from Disconnection
Few Members of Congress, state legislators, presidential appointees, or members of their staff have experienced prolonged disconnection from education and employment. For example:
Every current U.S. senator has at least one postsecondary credential. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is the only member of the chamber with an associate’s degree as his highest degree.
Only 4% of Members of the House of Representatives (19) have no educational degree beyond a high school diploma or GED, compared to about one-third of Americans.
Members of Congress disproportionately come from white-collar and wealthy backgrounds. Only 5 Members of Congress (1%) are members of a union, compared to about one-tenth of all Americans. Meanwhile, approximately 100 Members of Congress (18%) have wealth that places them in the top 1% of U.S. households ($12 million or more).
The Lessons: Four (or More) Different Ways to Talk about Opportunity Youth
We invite you to use any of the following four ways to introduce policymakers to Opportunity Youth (OY) and youth disconnection. Each of these ways 1) seeks to build positive feelings about Opportunity Youth, and enthusiasm for OY-supporting programs and funding streams, 2) focuses on the strengths of Opportunity Youth, and 3) pivots back to how programs meet the needs of Opportunity Youth. Talking points and questions are in italics.
1. Making the Human Connection: Everyone Had a First Job
To deal with the lack of lived experience of disconnection among policymakers, link youth disconnection to common experiences.
Talking about a first job is a great gateway to a conversation about opportunities. Whether they had a positive, negative, or in-between experience of that job, a first job evokes memories of adolescence – and the uncertainty and possibility that came with it – creating more empathy for Opportunity Youth seeking employment. They may see parallels (or differences) between their experiences and that of Opportunity Youth.
Example questions and talking points include:
What was your first job? What did you learn there?
Many Opportunity Youth have little, or no, work experience – but they want to have experiences like the one you had.
We’re asking for all young people to have a first-job experience where they can make money and find dignity and meaning.
Programs that serve Opportunity Youth offer them that chance, whether in the form of a part-time summer job, an internship, an earn-and-learn program, or full-time employment.
2. All Young People Need the Same Things
Each generation faces unique challenges, but the needs of young people have remained constant across time, place, and circumstance: safety, connection, learning, agency, and possibility.
As they age, teens and young adults seek to differentiate themselves from their family of origin, achieve individual milestones, take risks, and have new experiences.
There are several ways to talk about these universal needs…
Developmental angle:
As kids, we all need safety and stability.
As we grow up, we need chances to make our own decisions, stand out, take risks, and try new things.
Some young people have all these needs met within their family of origin and the place they grow up.
Opportunity Youth want and need the same things, but they may have missed out on some formative experiences.
In addition to training or a job, programs that serve OY are trying to provide stability, agency, connection, and the opportunity for new experiences – critical ingredients in a successful transition to adulthood.
Construction metaphor:
Growing up requires a sturdy foundation that includes lots of different elements: having basic needs met (food, housing, healthcare), caring adults, education, chances to engage in healthy risk-taking, and more.
Programs that serve Opportunity Youth often provide many of these foundational elements. These programs offer much more than a chance to get a credential and a job.
A spectrum of options:
Young people have the same developmental needs, but each person will meet these needs differently.
For some young people, they experience stability and the chance to try new things within their family of origin, and attend good secondary schools. They may be well-prepared for the less-structured environment of a two- or four-year college.
Other young people may need more support during their teenage years. They may need an educational or training program that can provide work-appropriate clothing, transportation, housing, or care for their child; career navigation or help finding a job; or mentoring and a network of caring adults.
That’s why we need a spectrum of types of programs. We need less-structured and lower-cost models, like community colleges. We need more enriched models like YouthBuild, which combine pre-apprenticeship training with supportive services. And we need programs, like Job Corps, that provide housing for their participants.
See more about the “developmental angle” in Recommendation #3 from this FrameWorks piece. See more about the “construction metaphor” here.
3. Appealing to American Ideals
There are many ways to tell the American story, and many understandings of what our highest ideals are as a nation. Youth disconnection speaks to many different conceptions of these ideals. For example:
Opportunity frame:
America is a country of opportunity. The first groups of European Americans (Puritans, Cavaliers, and Quakers among them) to move to the North America were groups of people who didn’t fit in. They came to the New World to make a fresh start.
Our country has never guaranteed equal outcomes. However, a place where everyone has the chance to succeed has been a big draw since before the nation’s founding.
We seek to give Opportunity Youth that same chance. Programs that serve OY help them pursue their interests, through education, employment, and entrepreneurship.
Belonging and inclusion frame:
Opportunity Youth call us to live up to our country’s highest ideals: To be a place where everyone belongs and can fully participate in our society. OY face multiple barriers to that full participation.
Federal policy and federal investments address those barriers, but we can be doing a lot more. Programs that serve OY meet them where they are – with employment, training, and wraparound supports – and empower them to write their own American story.
4. Leaving Money on the Table
Talking about return on investment (ROI) in relation to Opportunity Youth should be done with care, because it can easily slip into a discussion about deficits, not assets. It’s important to pair any ROI discussion with the gifts that OY bring to the table.
Example talking points include:
The research is clear: Reconnecting young people to education and employment is a great investment.
When young people are working, they make more money and stay out of poverty. They pay taxes and contribute to economic growth. And they are less likely to cost the government money, whether in spending on public benefits, law enforcement, or social services.
Right now, we’re leaving money on the table, for taxpayers and the country, by not investing in Opportunity Youth.
We miss out on so much more than tax dollars when young people are shut out of education and employment. Opportunity Youth are our future inventors, artists, and leaders.
Today, programs around the country are helping unlock these savings, and tap into all the gifts that Opportunity Youth bring to the table.
Other Ways to Introduce Opportunity Youth
The FrameWorks Institute has done invaluable work to create different research-based ways to talk about Opportunity Youth, and other groups of transition-age youth – some of which are referenced above. Here are some other metaphors and stories created by FrameWorks:
Democracy Is a Necessary Condition for This Work
Any erosion of democracy threatens the futures of Opportunity Youth, by stifling their speech and depressing economic growth. Opportunity Youth are also disproportionately racial, sexual, and gender minorities; they depend on democratic ideals of equality under law.
Here are some ways to incorporate pro-democracy messages into discussions with policymakers…
Freedom of speech:
Our representative system of government depends on the ability of everyone to voice their views, free of fear.
No matter our politics, we share a belief in the protections of our Constitution – that the government should not be permitted to silence and censor organizations just because they disagree with them.
Threats to organizations that don’t agree with the president harm this system, and the ability of Congress to do its work.
More specifically, [my/our organization] depends on its nonprofit status to operate. We also depend on funding from philanthropic sources, which must be able to operate without government coercion. We won’t be here to help you do your job if the federal government starts threatening nonprofits or revoking their tax-exempt status.
Representative government and voting
Young people are new voters: they want voting to be an experience that’s simple and positive. Changes to how voting happens are not helpful. The confusion brought on by gerrymandering is not helpful.
Young people need to feel a sense of agency when they look to the future. Anything that makes it harder to vote saps that sense of agency.
Separation of powers:
Our Constitution specifies different roles for different parts of our government. Congress writes the laws, the president implements the laws, and the courts decide whether laws are constitutional.
This separation of powers is what children learn in school, and it’s served our country well for almost 250 years.
Young people like Opportunity Youth will lose trust in our system of government if they see it operating in a way counter to our traditions.
That’s why Congress needs to asset its power to write the laws, and hold the president accountable when he disobeys the will of Congress.
Law and order:
Opportunity Youth disproportionately grow up in areas with high crime rates. They experience firsthand what crime and disorder can do to communities.
We’re currently seeing National Guard and federal law enforcement officers descend on communities where they don’t live.
These kinds of actions make people feel less, not more, safe – especially young people.
When young people don’t feel safe, they are less likely to attend school and go to work. That’s what we are seeing now in places where federal law enforcement and National Guard troops are deployed.
What Else Has Worked?
What are we missing? Have you found other approaches or metaphors successful in your meetings with policymakers? If so, let us know!
Thomas Showalter is an independent consultant assisting nonprofits with policy change, program implementation, fund development, and communications, as well as a subject matter expert in areas including K-12 education, workforce development, and disability. Thomas was previously executive director of the National Youth Employment Coalition, served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and worked in various roles at public-affairs and public-relations firms.
