PYD Inter-Agency Working Groups-White House Initiatives

To facilitate that work, the Division of Youth and 4-H is actively involved with the following Federal efforts:

• Inter-Agency Working Groups
• White House Initiatives

Inter-agency Working Groups

• P-12 STEM Education Inter-Agency Working Group – Agencies strive to align their STEM education investments in support of improvement of STEM Instruction. Goals are to prepare 100,000 excellent new K-12 STEM teachers by 2020 as well as support the existing STEM teacher workforce.
   
• Federal Inter-Agency Working Group on Youth Programs – FIWGYP is composed of representatives from 18 federal agencies that support programs and services focusing on youth. This group promotes the goal of positive, healthy outcomes for youth in four significant ways: (1) create and support Youth.gov; (2) create and support the Youth Engaged 4 Change websites; (3) identify and disseminate promising and effective strategies; and (4) promote enhanced collaboration across organizations.
   
• Digital Games for Impact – This group is working to increase federal support of educational gaming and share examples of games developed by federal agencies.
   
• Informal Science Inter-Agency Working Group – Agencies meet to share programs and best practices in non-formal/informal science education programming.
   
• Informal Working Group on International Positive Youth Development – Agencies share information and connect on international positive youth development programming.
   
• Military Partnerships – This team reviews and coordinates educational programs designed to equip military-connected youth in resiliency skills they need to lead positive, productive, and contributing lives. Military-connected youth are inherently at risk from a variety of factors that include: multiple and lengthy deployments by family members; relocation of the family; single-partner households; low income; and returning home family members who are wounded or do not return home.
   
• STEM Engagement Inter-Agency Working Group – With a goal of increasing sustained youth involvement in STEM, this group is working to support the integration of STEM into existing school readiness and afterschool programs and increase the empirical understanding of how engagement in authentic STEM experiences relates to improved student learning outcomes.
   
• Smithsonian Waterways Inter-Agency Working Group – Waterways explores human-biosphere interactions in water-based environments with the goal of increasing your awareness about the environment and eco-stewardship. The goal is to develop an online portal for federal educational resources about water.
   
• Financial Literacy Education Committee – The Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC) was established under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003. The Commission was tasked to develop a national financial education website (MyMoney.gov) and a national strategy on financial education. It is chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury in partnership with the vice chair, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Commission is made up of 19 additional federal agencies. FLEC has four strategic foci: 1) Preparing Children and Youth for a Financially Capable Adulthood; 2) Informing Higher Education Decision Making; 3) Advancing Financial Education in the Workplace; and 4) Research and Evaluation.
   
• Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Group – With more than one in four children affected, bullying is a public health issue with significant short- and long-term impacts on the behavioral health of children in addition to their overall healthy development. This group is a longstanding and strong partner to invested agencies across government committed to reducing the occurrence and impact of this form of peer victimization.
   
• Prevention Inter-Agency Working Group – The primary objectives of this group include increasing engagement with schools, promoting the community benefits of prevention strategies, identifying and filling research gaps, and developing media resources for Prevention Month. Prevention work focuses on tobacco, alcohol, and drug use.
   
• Federal Coordinating Council for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention – The Federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) established the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as an independent body within the executive branch of the federal government. Active in some form since 1976, the Council's primary functions are to coordinate federal juvenile delinquency prevention programs, federal programs and activities that detain or care for unaccompanied juveniles, and federal programs relating to missing and exploited children. In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Council meets in public meetings in which members discuss activities to facilitate and support cross-agency coordination.
   
• Adolescence Health Inter-Agency Working Group – This group works to address three goals: to stimulate, inform, focus, and strengthen HHS action on the health and well-being of adolescents; to promote cross-agency collaboration and enhanced coordination of adolescent health efforts; and to serve as a forum for exchanging information relevant to improving adolescent health and well-being.
   
• Joining Community Forces – This team focuses attention on building bridges with USDA-NIFA, land-grant universities, the Cooperative Extension, and local communities in support of Army and Air National Guard families, children and veterans.
   
• Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development – This task force is led and hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The group includes representatives from 19 federal agencies who work to catalyze research opportunities and information-sharing about the arts’ role in improving health and education outcomes across the human lifespan. NEA published a literature review and gap analysis titled, "The Arts in Early Childhood: Social and Emotional Benefits of Arts Participation."

White House Initiatives

The Division of Youth and 4-H is currently involved in the following White House efforts:

• National Robotics Initiative – The goal of the National Robotics Initiative is to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside or cooperatively with people. Innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of such co-robots working in symbiotic relationships with human partners is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government.
   
• Citizen Science Initiative – This interagency group works to celebrate the successes of citizen science and crowdsourcing, raise awareness about the benefits that these innovative approaches can deliver, and motivate more federal agencies and Americans to take advantage of these approaches.
   
• Maker Initiative – This interagency group works to elevate and highlight the many aspects of making, raise awareness of making approaches to spur innovation and entrepreneurship, and motivate more federal agencies and Americans to engage with the maker movement.