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Youth Council

The Youth Council is a subcommittee of the NH Workforce Innovation Board.
The mission of the Youth Council is to:
  • Sustain and improve New Hampshire’s competitiveness in the global market by developing askilled and flexible workforce through education and highly-skilled training and
  • Empower New Hampshire’s youth to choose and begin career paths that unlock individual’s passion that lead to economic security, competitiveness, personal fulfillment, community service and self-sufficiency as they become active citizens within their communities.
The Governor’s vision for ensuring that every youth has the opportunity for developing and achieving  career goals through education and workforce training is to ensure that all youth will have the knowledge and skills they need to compete in the marketplace of ideas, reach their full potential, succeed as productive workers and citizens and achieve economic self-sufficiency.
The goals established to achieve this vision are as follows:
Improve the system. Develop a more comprehensive and coordinated workforce development system for all New Hampshire youth.
  • Offer education, employment, and training services in as many ways as possible that are designed to connect learning, work and support services.
  • Develop a smooth system of transition between and among secondary and post-secondary schools.
  • Create a system that embraces a variety of learning styles.
  • Increase systemic capacity to identify and respond to “at-risk” youth earlier.
  • Continue to evolve a competency-based system of standards and assessments for the K-12 education system.
  • Align learning opportunities and curricula with statewide educational standards and with vital and emerging industries.
Capture youth at promise. Develop capacity to ensure all youth, especially our economically disadvantaged youth and those out of school, have the opportunities and support needed to become productive members of the workforce and achieve economic self-sufficiency.
  • Improve secondary school attendance and graduation rates.
  • Improve retention and recovery efforts for school dropouts.
  • Increase employment opportunities for youth not in school.
  • Decrease youth engaged in risky behaviors
  • Support all learners in a way that recognizes and builds on their strengths.
  • Ensure that all youth have the opportunity for advanced training such as apprenticeship, military service and post-secondary programs.
  • Improve college entry and graduation rates.
  • Provide alternative education opportunities for youth that have left school without their diploma and/or assist youth to remain in school to achieve their graduation requirements.
  • Create re-entry and transitional options for incarcerated young adults.
Leverage resources. Leverage and coordinate a wide range of local, private, community, state and federal resources to support the system vision, maximize partnerships, and networking opportunities to support youth with an eye toward reducing duplication of services.
  • Approach the congressional delegation for support
Brand Identity: Establish the Youth Council as the statewide resource for the development of emerging workforce preparation programs that teach real-world employment skills, create active employment opportunities to practice those skills, and enhance inter-generational communications and relationships related to employment practices.
Manage by outcomes: Ensure greater performance accountability for youth outcomes in workforce development and related initiatives that serve youth.
Advocacy: Serve as the leading Council responsible for advocacy of at-risk youth and emerging workforce issues.
Once achieved, these goals and objectives will enable New Hampshire to realize its vision for youth.Therefore, the focus of the Youth Council will be to develop tools, methods, advocacy, and program linkages that positively impact on these goals.This will involve a five-step process as follows:
  • Design a system to respond to these goals and objectives
  • Determine ways to measure system and program results
  • Monitor and assess these results
  • Make system adjustments and
  • Refine the goals and objectives.
Youth Council Membership: Council members are appointed by the Governor for a three-year term that may be renewed.
Brenda Quinn
E-Stem
Chair
Dwight Davis
Senior Helpers of the Greater Seacoast
Immediate Past Chair
Jay Apicelli
Partnership for Restorative Justice Practices
Joy Barrett
Granite State Children’s Alliance
Richard Haynes
University of New Hampshire
Michael Currier
Plymouth Regional High School
Michelle Desmond
Manchester Housing Authority
Michael Dunican
North American Equipment Upfitters
Ursula Fontaine
CVS/Caremark
Jacqueline Guillette
Superintendent, SAU #75
Dr. Susan Huard
Manchester Community College
Kathleen Jablonski
UNH Cooperative Extension
Paul Leather
NH Department of Education
Jason Lyon
The Common Man Restaurants
Patrick Lyons
Parent, Dell
Hon. Willard Martin
Martin, Lord, Osman, P.A.
Sylvia McCarron
HR State Council of NH
Deb Naro
Community Alliance for Drug-Free Youth
Toni Pappas
Hillsborough County Commissioner
Rick Wheeler
Associated Grocers of New England
Workforce Investment Act Youth Programs:
  • An overview of WIA Youth funded programs can be found here.
  • The next Request for Proposal (RFP) for Workforce Investment Act Youth funded programs is scheduled for November, 2014 for the Program Years 2015 and 2016.
Contact Information:Office of Workforce Opportunity
NH Dept. of Resources and Economic Development
172 Pembroke Road, Concord, NH 0330l
603-271-7275
Facebook: State of NH Youth Workforce Council