Narrative: c. 3.

A key way of determining whether youth have access to all 14 service elements is through file review and annual monitoring. Monitors review youth files for results of comprehensive assessment and how these are used to develop the youth service plan. Plans are reviewed to ensure that they incorporate appropriate youth service elements and how these are offered to youth. Each local area may approach provision of service elements differently, with some offering most services through direct program staff and others braiding the services of multiple local providers.

Two areas that service providers have had difficulty offering are adult mentoring (to the level required under the act) and entrepreneurship training. State agency staff provide technical assistance to local boards and their service providers and have brainstormed ways these services can be offered. Most areas utilize youth case managers as adult mentors, and many have built mentoring by employers into work experience activities. Again, the rural and vast geography make a formal program of adult mentoring a challenge.

Entrepreneurship training is being included in service plans only if the youth has expressed a specific interest. Technical assistance has been provided to encourage broader understanding among youth service staff of what can be included in entrepreneurship training which doesn’t require a youth to be interested in self-employment per se, but that can incorporate entrepreneurial skill development in other ways.

All current youth service providers have formal relationships with providers of mental health and substance use counseling to which youth with these needs are referred. Attendance is supported and monitored by youth staff. Many service providers have hired what they call a service navigator, usually a licensed social worker who can provide some level of counseling and who has the expertise to connect youth directly to appropriate services.

All youth service providers offer work experience opportunities, including paid work-experience that includes academic and occupational skill development, internships, on-the-job training and ensuring young women are aware of nontraditional occupations that pay wages that are significantly higher than traditional female occupations and of apprenticeship as an occupational skill development pathway. 

The Maine apprenticeship program accepts youth ages 16 and older and as such most out of school youth can enter apprenticeship directly without the need for pre-apprenticeship training.  However, the Maine Apprenticeship Program has recently engaged in collaborations between the secondary Career and Technical Education Centers (CTEs) and trade associations and trade unions to brainstorm possibilities for formal pre-apprenticeship programs for in-school youth seeking to enter apprenticeable occupations in Maine.  Both sponsors and educators are cautious, as prior pre-apprenticeship programs haven’t always resulted in a direct pathway to registered apprenticeship.  Employers must be willing and able to take on the liability of younger workers which is often the key barrier to employer’s partnering to provide pre-apprenticeship. 

Finally, statewide youth service provider staff attend training to get a clear understanding of each of the youth service elements, how they can be provided, how they must be built into a youth service plan and how they must be documented in Maine JobLink.