Case Study: U.S. Department of Labor achieves broad engagement of youth with disabilities and actionable policy insights with IdeaScale

Department of Labor Engaging Youth in Planning

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), together with NCWD/Youth, launched YouthACT — a four-day online dialogue to learn what supports help youth and young adults with disabilities (ages 13–25) become successful adults. The challenge was to engage a diverse, often hard-to-reach youth audience in a short time window while keeping the conversation focused, respectful, and policy-relevant.

ePolicyWorks led a targeted outreach and moderation strategy — eight staged email blasts, targeted social media (including direct tweets to 45 disability organizations), and active moderators who recognized, prompted, and assessed contributions to keep discussions on track. The effort drove high engagement: 452 participants submitted 74 ideas, 347 comments and 609 votes; 760 unique visitors (95% completed registration, 27% actively contributed), strong on-site engagement (8+ pages per visit, 10+ minutes, ~50% return rate), with 22% of new visitors from social media. The campaign earned recognition as a 2016 IdeaScale runner-up for Best Moderation Strategy.

U.S. Department of Labor