YouthBuild

Under the YouthBuild Funding Opportunity Announcement, DOL will award grants through a competitive process to organizations providing pre-apprenticeship services that support education, occupational skills training, and employment services to opportunity youth, ages 16 to 24, while performing meaningful work and service to their communities. The YouthBuild program model prepares participants for quality jobs in a variety of careers, including infrastructure, and contains wrap-around services such as mentoring, trauma-informed care, personal counseling, and employment – all key strategies for addressing community violence. YouthBuild applicants must include construction skills training and may include occupational skills training in other in-demand industries. This expansion into additional indemand industries is the Construction Plus component, a priority in this grant competition.

YouthBuild is a community-based alternative education program for youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who left high school prior to graduation that also have other risk factors, including being an adjudicated youth, youth aging out of foster care, youth with disabilities, migrant farmworker youth, youth experiencing housing instability, and other disadvantaged youth populations. The YouthBuild program simultaneously addresses multiple core issues important to youth in lowincome communities: affordable housing, leadership development, education, and employment opportunities in in-demand industries and apprenticeship pathways. YouthBuild programs serve as the connection point to vital services for participants. Key aspects of the YouthBuild service delivery model include meaningful partnership and collaboration with the public workforce development system, education and human services systems, and labor and industry partners.

The YouthBuild model balances project-based academic learning and occupational skills training to prepare opportunity youth for career placement and supports the Administration's goal to build a modern and sustainable infrastructure. YouthBuild programs are well-positioned to connect participants with career opportunities developing as a result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (construction), Inflation Reduction Act (clean energy), and CHIPS and Science Act (manufacturing). For more information on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including a guidebook of other funding opportunities, visit https://www.build.gov.

Questions regarding this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) may be emailed to YB_FOA-ETA-23-17@dol.gov. We encourage prospective applicants and interested parties to use the Grants.gov subscription option to register for future updates provided for this particular FOA.