This webinar presented a conversation between the National Community Action Partnership and U.S. Digital Response (USDR) about incorporating user-centered design elements into workflows and services to reach and serve communities more effectively. The hosts discussed the USDR’s partnership with the Empire Justice Center and how user-centered practices enabled delivery of financial services to low-income families throughout the pandemic. Overall, they offered a clearer vision for how to design work with a distinct focus on the end user, along with tangible tips, takeaways, and recommendations to humanize processes therein.

This blogpost profiles how Covenant House in New York City, the largest service provider for homeless youth, has used motivational interviewing techniques since 2018. These techniques have been shown to be particularly effective in helping this population deal with depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues. It also explains how the Annie E. Casey Foundation supported Covenant House partnering with mental health technology startup, Lyssn, to tailor their motivational interviewing artificial intelligence to a more diverse youth population. The software, which complies with federal health privacy law, records motivational interviewing sessions and uses an algorithm to evaluate the interviewer’s performance. Additionally, a chatbot app, ClientBot, was created to simulate interviewing scenarios that help Covenant House staff practice motivational interviewing techniques.

This report overviews the design and implementation of the New Start Career Network, a statewide program that assists older, long-term unemployed New Jerseyans. The report examines the rationale behind the program and its design, notes the collaborators involved, and discusses the program’s services, including a website, webinars, online tools, and career coaching. It also reviews approaches to engaging employers as well as recruiting members and coaches. In addition, lessons learned, recommendations, and key elements for serving long-term, unemployed job seekers are identified.

Supervision and coaching are vital opportunities to build workers’ skills. This virtual Coaching Tool gives supervisors key questions, guidance, and ideas about how to help workers assess and support Protective and Promotive Factors with youth. It reinforces and puts into action the Youth Thrive Framework and training content. The tool can be used in individual and/or group supervision, in conjunction with other supervisory models or approaches, or as part of training and professional development. Further, public agencies, non-profit and community-based organizations, and any place that provides youth services will find it useful.

This brief describes how Iowa’s Family Development and Self-Sufficiency (FaDSS) program used a data-driven reflection process to understand how well virtual coaching is meeting the needs of families. The brief also examines whether families may want a mix of remote and in-person coaching options in the future. It describes lessons learned through this process and aims to help TANF and other human services agencies generate ideas on how to use data-driven reflection to make decisions in their own organizations.

The authors of this blog provide data and commentary that highlight three key economic concerns for the summer of 2022: women leaving the labor force, economic contraction erasing job gains by Black workers, and the heightened risk of food insecurity. To mitigate these potential pitfalls, the authors suggest robust fiscal policies such as stronger unemployment insurance and a renewed monthly Child Tax Credit as well as a collaborative effort from the federal government, states, philanthropy, and local community-based organizations to support families vulnerable to food insecurity and homelessness in the coming months.

Can the promising IT job market improve the economic mobility of adults who are unemployed or looking for higher-wage jobs? This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation paper examines the Per Scholas WorkAdvance program by exploring opportunities for advancement in two of the IT occupations targeted by the program. The paper outlines potential advancement opportunities within the IT sector and details the career advancement outcomes (as measured by earnings) of program participants. The key findings noted that most participants completed Per Scholas’s WorkAdvance IT training and obtained an industry-recognized certification. Many participants who started Per Scholas’s WorkAdvance IT training increased their earnings over time.

The authors of these five essays explore the extent to which young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds achieve steady, decent-paying employment by their early thirties. Using multivariate analysis, they identify factors predicting membership to four different earnings groups. Factors associated with membership in one or both of the higher-earning groups include higher education, military service, union membership, job-related training, and working in a non-service sector occupation at age 25. Factors associated with belonging to a lower-earning group include incarceration, work-limiting health conditions, and prolonged unemployment.

Through an analysis of the largest public datasets on U.S. occupational roles, skills, wages, and workers, this report discusses research findings of a study which identifies a talent pool of 71 million workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs). Its findings conclude that low-wage does not equate to low skill, STARs represent a vast overlooked pool of talent, and STARs have different trajectories to increase wages.

This white paper highlights several important trends in the labor market that continue to affect the nature of work. Based on these trends, it presents potential research topics in program areas that include job search and career counseling, education and training, and support for workers who have lost their jobs or work outside the traditional employer-employee model.