The Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act of 1977 (YEDPA) authorized a range of research, evaluation, and demonstration activities to increase understanding of the employment problems of youth and to help determine the most effective policies and programs to address these problems. Although many programs, such as the War on Poverty and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) had addressed these problems previously, these programs had failed to provide a knowledge base for youth programs for the 1980s. Past knowledge development efforts were not adequately balanced, coordinated, disseminated, or operationalized. The knowledge development required by the 1977 YEDPA is documented in a series of reports, grouped into 12 categories. This document, the first of the reports, presents a rationale for the knowledge development effort, and an overview of the entire YEDPA program and the reports stemming from it. The three plans contained in this document provide the framework for the following "Youth Knowledge Development Reports." The three plans build on each other. The first plan emphasizes the coordinated assessment of "first order" issues needed to legislate more effective youth programs. The second plan fine tunes the questions and better structures the activities to address more detailed administrative, service mix, and target group issues, and to test longer duration interventions. The third plan stresses follow-through on previous activities and also emphasizes dissemination and application of the findings. In addition, implications for the 1980s are discussed. (KC)