Sector programs train people for high-quality jobs in industries that have strong local demand and offer the opportunity for career advancement. Most programs offer similar services: job-readiness training (including professional skills development), occupational skills training, and support services. These programs can improve both the educational and the economic outcomes of low-income adults trying to enter and advance in the labor market. This MDRC paper presents recommendations that can help policymakers and practitioners develop high-quality programs to assist unemployed people in obtaining the skills and support they need to work in high-wage, high-growth sectors of the labor market in their regions.

The Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs (SIRF) project used an iterative learning approach, or learning cycles, to build evidence on promising practices for increasing participation in fatherhood programs. Fatherhood programs participating in the SIRF study implemented promising approaches to increase fathers’ participation, worked with the study team to assess how the approaches could be strengthened, and applied what they learned from those assessments to the next cycle. Each program tested one of three broad approaches to improving fathers’ enrollment, engagement, and retention in services. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation reflection includes six videos featuring program staff members and mentors describing the SIRF approaches tested and how the participants responded to those approaches.

Wisconsin’s Youth Apprenticeship program is the oldest and largest ongoing youth apprenticeship (YA) program in the U.S. As youth apprenticeship has reemerged as an attractive option for preparing young people for careers, Wisconsin’s YA program offers interesting insights to policymakers and practitioners. The state funds the program in a way that emphasizes local control, administration, and outreach to high school students and employers. This Urban Institute brief highlights the program’s history, recent growth, and structure and draws on perspectives from state officials, local program directors, and employers.

Young adulthood is a crucial period that can determine a person’s success later in life by setting a trajectory for work experience, education and training, and financial stability. Unfortunately, many previously incarcerated young adults face collateral consequences from policies and laws that make it difficult to obtain employment and education even after they are released from incarceration. This Center for American Progress issue brief offers recommendations and highlights promising practices at the state and local levels for improving the economic outcomes of reentering young adults, addressing barriers to reentry, and reducing recidivism.

WorkforceGPS will host a virtual session on July 27, 2023, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET that will provide technical assistance to workforce-oriented entities looking to better identify occupational segregation, which perpetuates wage disparities and hinders career advancement. In attending, participants will learn tangible ways to access and use publicly available data to understand the impact of occupational segregation in their communities. The webinar will feature a live demonstration of disaggregating publicly available data and will also feature guest speakers who will share practical examples of how data can be used to inform program practices and policies.

In 2014, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released a treatment improvement protocol manual entitled Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services, as well as Concept of Trauma, which served as a landmark publication that has influenced service provision beyond the areas of behavioral health and health care. Trauma continues to be a cross-SAMHSA priority, given its significant role in behavioral health prevention, treatment, and recovery. This updated guide expands the discussion presented in SAMHSA’s earlier resources, specifically focusing on tools and strategies for implementing a trauma-informed approach (TIA). The guide highlights the need for organizational assessment of readiness and capacity before implementing TIA and describes strategies for such assessments.

Family economic well-being — including financial, material, and related socio-emotional resources — can support a family’s long-term stability, a positive home environment, and children’s healthy development. Yet, 1 in 10 families with children live below the poverty line. Early childhood home visiting (ECHV) has the potential to support families’ economic well-being. The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in collaboration with the Health Resources and Services Administration initiated the Supporting Family Economic Well-Being through Home Visiting project to better understand how to define and measure family economic well-being and to learn how ECHV agencies have supported or could support it. This report summarizes the findings from targeted reviews of literature and practice documents from ECHV and related fields, such as social work, child welfare, and employment- and income-focused supports.

The Launch Pathways Initiative (Launch) is a national college and career pathways initiative focused on advancing high-quality, equitable, and sustainable pathways models at scale. The Launch Partners provide technical assistance to twelve teams from eleven states, organized into two cohorts: the Impact Cohort and the Innovation Cohort. While state teams in both cohorts focus on building more equitable and sustainable college and career pathways systems, the cohorts will follow two distinct paths. This New America blogpost provides a glimpse into the work of the Impact Cohort.

The Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides states with unprecedented amounts of funding to deploy broadband infrastructure, improve affordability, and ensure meaningful adoption in communities. Governors are investing in high-speed internet to grow economies and empower people to fully participate in digital society. Yet up to 205,000 fiber optic technicians, as well as thousands of additional engineers and construction workers, will be needed over the next five years to realize these goals. During the National Governor Association’s (NGA) 2023 Broadband Leaders Workshop, participants gathered to share best practices and discuss opportunities and challenges presented by different broadband measures. This NGA commentary explores three promising models for expanding the broadband workforce: leveraging sector partnerships, investing in apprenticeship, and partnering with community colleges.