Possible State Intervention Options to Serve Transition-Age Youths: Lessons from the West Virginia Youth Works Demonstration Project

The Social Security Administration (SSA) funded the West Virginia Youth Works intervention as part of the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) to improve the employment and independent-living outcomes of youths with disabilities. This project was one of six that constituted the full YTD evaluation. This article examines Youth Works implementation and outcomes to provide a potential case study for other states interested in expanding services to youths with disabilities. We find that Youth Works enrollees reported increases in the use of employment services, in employment, and in income in the year after random assignment into the treatment group, and the effects were large relative to those of previous SSA demonstrations. However, the size of the effects had diminished in the third year after random assignment, by which time project supports were no longer in place, indicating the potential importance of follow-up supports.