To honor the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's inauguration speech, the U.S. Conference of Mayors has launched "Ask What Youth Can Do," asking mayors to visit schools to discuss "why it is important for young people to be engaged in their community."

If these discussions are to lead to concrete actions in Baltimore, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake should consider her authority over summer and after-school jobs programs. The programs' goal is providing youths with the skills needed for access to a career ladder. The best way to do that — and engage youths in their community — is to connect these programs to national challenges such as health, energy, the environment and financial literacy. Directing youth programs to these national challenges can benefit everyone instead of resulting in the usual trade-off among competing goals.

Consider health care. Unhealthy lifestyles — including ignoring doctors' advice regarding medicine, check-ups, diet and exercise — add substantially to the unremitting pressure on state and federal budgets for Medicaid. But challenged communities have resources that can help. A Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute study showed that blood pressure checks by neighborhood barbers, coupled with education and physician referral, lowered hypertension rates in black men. In Somerville, Mass., reminder calls from nurses have reduced hospital readmissions. Notably, only 15 percent of the intervention patients failed to follow up, compared to 41 percent of the control group.

Any well-balanced youth program will consider the potential contribution youngsters can make. For example, youths — equipped with cell phones and connected to a mentor — can help provide the "ounce of prevention" that is worth an expensive "pound of cure." A "Take Your Medicine" youth project could be used to fight obesity or provide prenatal care. Already, we see pre-programmed cell-phone messages having a positive effect; a personal call from a community youngster should be even more effective.

How would participating youths benefit? Employment in health care increased even during the recent recession. Finding out about the variety of opportunities in the field and the steps needed to qualify for them will help many. A well-designed program with well-trained mentors will also teach broad skills, such as responsibility, teamwork, oral and written communication, acquiring and evaluating information (does the patient need to call his or her doctor?), and time management. Mentors could give their mentees recommendations and a "verified resume" attesting to these skills, which will help as they search for a job or seek further education. (Programs for issuing verified resumes are run by more than a dozen of Baltimore's community-based organizations.)

Baltimore might structure the program with an eye to obtaining outside matching funds from firms interested in "mobile health," pharmaceutical-related foundations, insurance companies and foundations associated with particular diseases, such as asthma or obesity. Researchers at Johns Hopkins and other Baltimore institutions are highly qualified to attract these funds. Hopkins also runs self-financed youth programs.

"Take Your Medicine" could serve as a model for engaging youths in meeting other community and national goals:

•Energy efficiency. Employ social networks to encourage the use of car pools and public transportation or weatherizing homes.

•Environment. Encourage beautification and recycling.

•Financial literacy: Banks and credit card companies might be interested in programs that taught youngsters financial prudence.

Governments at all levels will have to operate differently as needs grow and funds shrink. Dismantling departmental "silos" to obtain mutually beneficial solutions is one path. In health, particularly, the nation can no longer afford to use highly trained, well-paid doctors and nurses to do jobs that could be done by community health workers, especially when the alternative is no care. Furthermore, the community is more likely to listen to a youngster whose family they know. Similarly, using engineers for energy audits is great if there are enough of them and cost is not an issue. Otherwise, officials may want to consider training and employing youngsters for this purpose.

The job market is awful for young people and likely to be so for a long while. This is especially true for disadvantaged youths who lack technical and so-called "soft" skills that employers seek and who are simply unaware of many career ladders and how to get on them.

Mayors who lead youths to help their own communities will be doing a favor for the youngsters, the community and their cities.

Arnold Packer was a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Policy Studies and served as assistant secretary of labor in the Carter administration. His e-mail is arnoldpacker@gmail.com.