This brief from the Transitional Jobs Network highlights a variety of models currently being used to connect homeless individuals with employment. Models highlighted include transitional jobs, individualized placement support, alternative staffing, customized employment, contextualized basic adult education, adult education bridge programs, and sector-based training. Within each model, a program example is provided for readers to better understand how the strategy is being used in the real world.

From the Center for Law and Social Policy, this resource provides an overview of the need for adult education, as nearly 30 million adults in the U.S. have below a high school education. The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (Title II of the Workforce Investment Act) provides services to support two million adults in gaining basic skills and a high school equivalent degree. Such programs help adult workers gain the basic skills they need to attain and maintain employment, and thus, less reliance on economic support programs.

STAR is a training and technical assistance initiative of the Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, Division of Adult Education and Literacy. It contains helpful research and information on adult literacy. One of their issue papers titled "The Role of Diagnostic Assessment in Implementing Evidence-Based Reading Instruction" may be particularly helpful to look at when implementing literacy assessments with their TANF population.

Over 26 million adults in the United States do not have a high school degree and many of these individuals are classified as low-skilled. Many Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs, designed to provide foundational skills, are failing to place low-skilled students on a trajectory to enter credit-bearing postsecondary programs and earn postsecondary credentials. Accelerating Opportunity: A Breaking through Initiative, seeks to transform ABE programs in the United States to help low-skilled students move along educational pathways and into jobs that pay a living wage. Modeling their efforts after the Washington State Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program, 11 States throughout the U.S. are attempting to substantially increase the number of basic skills students enrolled in career pathway programs that lead to high-quality employment opportunities.

Community colleges around the country are faced with the task of teaching basic skills courses to over 2.5 million students. These students are often unable to make the transition to college-level coursework, an inability that has significant income-related implications. Individuals who do not take college coursework and earn an occupational certificate earn significantly less than those who do so. In an effort to aid students in making the transition from basic skills education to college coursework, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges developed the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program. The current study found I-BEST positively impacted six of seven educational outcomes as compared to a control group. Although the study did not find a relationship between I-BEST participation and positive changes in wages and hours worked, the authors attribute this to the participants entering the workforce during a recession. Due to the known positive relationship between college coursework and income, it is expected that future studies will find positive workforce outcomes among I-BEST participants.

The Workforce Strategies Initiative published this update on how community colleges and sector initiatives are collaborating to benefit businesses and low-income workers seeking. As there is a continued demand for workers educated beyond high school, 43 percent of adults between the ages of 25 and 64 in the United States are not educated beyond a high school level.

This paper looks at curricular and program redesign strategies being used in community colleges today to speed nontraditional students' advancement from lower levels of skill into credential programs and to shorten the time commitment that earning a credential demands of them. It presents a framework for understanding the range of experimentation with program and class reformatting and redesign, and identifies programs that exemplify promising approaches. The paper concludes with issues and questions that MDRC will need to address in assessing whether to proceed with a research program focused on program redesign efforts geared to working adults' needs.