The Employment Development Department (EDD), in coordination with the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), announces the availability of up to $25 million in Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Governor’s Discretionary Funds for the Opportunity Young Adult Career Pathway Program (OYACPP) PY 24-25 SFP.
Donor Name: California Employment Development Department
State: California
County: Alameda County (CA), Contra Costa County (CA), Fresno County (CA), Los Angeles County (CA), Sacramento County (CA), San Bernardino County (CA), San Diego County (CA), San Francisco County (CA), San Joaquin County (CA), Solano County (CA)
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 11/04/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The OYACPP PY 24-25 grants will support projects aimed at creating pathways to success for opportunity young adults (OYA) aged 18-28. These projects will test and demonstrate strategies to improve employment outcomes and reduce long-standing economic inequities for OYA. The program will help participants access good-quality jobs that offer family-sustaining wages, benefits, predictable hours, career advancement, and worker voice.
Additionally, projects will invest in wrap-around services and support, including comprehensive case management delivered through a trauma-informed approach, to enhance program completion, employment outcomes, and career advancement opportunities.
The funding opportunity will aid programs in expanding critical services for OYAs that will accelerate their movement into family-sustaining jobs. The program will allow the state to implement projects that utilize innovative, OYA-centered outreach and program strategies informed by OYA voice that build on the experience and perspective of OYA for program design and delivery. The intent of the program is to prepare and place OYAs in living-wage jobs through culturally competent services and programs tailored to the needs of young people with barriers such as unemployment or underemployment, as well as backgrounds in the foster care, homeless, or justice systems.
Therefore, the OYACPP PY 24-25 grant competition solicits proposals that employ best practices to accelerate employment into good-quality jobs in health, infrastructure, agriculture, and manufacturing, as well as public sector career pathways. Competitive programs will develop innovative employment strategies for the target populations by combining targeted industry sector training and education with trauma-informed and tailored wrap-around services. Programs should launch OYAs into sustainable career paths with a trajectory toward upward mobility. Particular attention should be devoted to expanding registered apprenticeships and work-based learning (WBL) opportunities and developing other education and training alternatives, preferably in partnership with community colleges, that prepare OYAs for quality employment in growing industries and provide good-quality jobs that offer living wages, benefits, and opportunities for advancement.
Funding Information
Applicants may apply for funding of $1,500,000 up to $2,000,000 to serve the target population.
Grant Period
The period of performance (POP) for projects funded under this SFP will be 18 to 24 months, with an anticipated start date of January 2025, and a project end date of March 2026.
Target Populations
For this SFP, the target groups include opportunity and disconnected young adults ages 18-28 facing significant employment barriers that increase the likelihood of lower earnings throughout adulthood, including, but not limited to, the following:
- Being Black or a person of color
- Being female
- Holding a service sector job
- Persistent unemployment
- Being a teen parent
- Work-limiting health conditions or having a disability
- History of incarceration
- Low parental earnings and wealth
- Lack of a high school diploma or GED.
Target Regions
The Opportunity Young Adult Career Pathway Programs should focus on services in counties and regions in California where significantly large or concentrated amounts of OYA with employment barriers reside. Applicants should identify the target region(s) and make a case that there is a concentrated population of the targeted demographic in the target region(s). Factors include, but are not limited to, communities with high crime or incarceration rates, high poverty rates, high underemployment or unemployment rates, and/or communities of color within each county. Some identified and suggested target regions include Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, San Francisco, Solano, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties, based on each county’s absolute or proportional number of OYAs or the percentage of a county’s population.
Eligibility Criteria
Eligible applicants are non-profit organizations, labor unions, tribal governments, community colleges, local workforce boards, and education and training providers. Applicants, including collaborations among partners, must have demonstrated expertise in assisting OYA and in workforce development programs. Individual and for-profit businesses are not eligible to apply.
For more information, visit EDD.
