Welcome to another Saturday. It came around fast, right?

Jackie Valley had been talking with colleagues about the struggles of some young American men when she began looking for explanations and, because she’s a Monitor writer, for solutions. Her story widened. There’s a swath of young adults for whom life just isn’t clicking.

“My biggest takeaway is that, for the most part, ‘disconnected youth’ are not lazy twentysomethings sitting around their parents’ houses playing video games,” Jackie told me. “Disconnection usually stems from other circumstances in their lives.” One young woman had needed to drop college for caregiving.

Jackie found answers near home. One organization had ditched rigid formulas (“college for all” is a big one) in favor of serving specific needs – here for a softer entry with extra training, there for exposure to unconsidered paths. It’s about listening, and about care.

“I think what we're seeing in Las Vegas is an effort to reconnect these adrift young people,” Jackie says, “by connecting some of the dots in their lives.”

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