Working with Disadvantage Youth: Thirty-Month Findings from the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Training Replication Sites

Efforts to replicate the experience of the Center for Employment Training (CET) in San Jose, California -- a uniquely successful program that helped at-risk youth develop skills needed to compete in today's labor market -- showed mixed results. This examination of 12 replication sites after two-and-a-half years found that only four sites that implemented the CET model with high fidelity to the original program increased youths' participation in employment and training activities, leading to fairly large increases in the receipt of training credentials. The study found that CET worked best for young women enrolled at the high-fidelity sites, where participation resulted in a substantial increase in the number who worked during the follow-up period and a large increase in the number who were still working at the two-and-a-half year point. The lack of positive impacts for young males continues a disappointing pattern for disadvantaged men whose barriers to acquiring training that would help them to move into better jobs have yet to be addressed successfully by any employment programs.