Field Connections / Contact Information
November, 2021
Stakeholder Resource
In observance of National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week, September 19-25, this compendium highlights nine practices that represent holistic approaches to delivering adult education programs. These programs represent approaches for modeling effective integrated education and training (IET) programs—transitioning adult learners from adult basic education to postsecondary education or training, and increasing access to adult education services. The practices are drawn from programs in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.
September, 2021
Report
This report reviews the use of technology-based learning (TBL), covering employability or soft skills, basic literacy and numeracy, technological literacy, job search skills, and occupational training and certification. It also examines approaches used to increase remote access for TBL, perceived barriers in implementing TBL at American Job Centers, and the American Job Center staff perceptions of the effectiveness of existing TBL services.
May, 2021
Webinar / Webcast
The Office of Family Assistance hosted a webinar on Wednesday, February 26 entitled Improving Employment Outcomes for TANF Recipients with Substance Use Disorders. The webinar outlined employment-focused strategies that can contribute to, rather than inhibit, substance use treatment and featured experts with backgrounds in research and practice on working with TANF recipients who have substance use disorders. Speakers discussed national trends in substance use disorders and strategies to move those with substance use disorders towards treatment, employment, and economic stability.
February, 2020
Research-To-Practice Brief
This research-to-practice brief profiles Kentucky’s Addiction Recovery Care program, which offers workforce development services for individuals with a history of substance misuse. The brief notes how individuals with opioid use disorder often encounter concurrent issues at the time of recovery, including poverty, homelessness, and low-level education attainment. The brief also identifies that workforce development services are not tailored to individuals with opioid use disorder and that these individuals need skills to maintain recovery and support self-sufficiency.
February, 2020
Research-To-Practice Brief
This research-to-practice brief identifies programmatic solutions to support reentry for young adults who have been involved in the juvenile justice or criminal justice system as they navigate employment and education pathways. The brief summarizes best practices from nine communities under the three-year U.S. Department of Labor-funded Compass Rose Collaborative (CRC). CRC communities are: Southeast Arkansas; Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado; Hartford, Connecticut; Louisville, Kentucky; Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; St. Louis, Missouri; and Albany, New York.
February, 2020
Stakeholder Resource
This Urban Institute blogpost profiles Kentucky’s Justice to Journeyman program, a prison apprenticeship program. The blogpost notes a key feature of the model: starting classroom occupational instruction (for jobs not available at correctional facilities) at the beginning of the apprenticeship and on-the-job training (OJT) upon the apprentice’s release. This classroom instruction and OJT leads to placement for jobs as welders, electricians, and telecommunications workers.
December, 2019
Reports / Testimony to Congress
This study, prepared by Mathematica, is the fourth annual report to Congress that evaluates 10 SNAP Pilot Projects in California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. The report identifies grantees’ enrollment goals and services, as well as their respective programs’ achievements and challenges. The evaluation used a random assignment research design to assess the level of support offered to SNAP participants on job search assistance, training, and basic and vocational education, as well as subsidized and unsubsidized work experience.
July, 2019
Innovative Programs
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) began as a demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice in the 1970s to address employment barriers facing individuals after their release from incarceration. In 1996, CEO became an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, providing comprehensive employment services to people newly released from New York State prisons and detention facilities. CEO operates in 22 cities across eight states and have made more than 30,000 placements into full-time employment for individuals who were formerly incarcerated.
June, 2019