This brief provides an overview of the strategies that Tribal HPOG grantees have used to implement the HPOG program, challenges encountered during implementation, lessons learned, and ongoing program evolution and adaptation to address unique tribal cultural and programmatic needs. The brief draws upon qualitative data collected from the first year of evaluation activities with the Tribal HPOG programs. It is part of a series of briefs being developed by the Tribal HPOG evaluation team, comprised of NORC at the University of Chicago, Red Star Innovations and the National Indian Health Board (NIHB). (author abstract)

The Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success at CLASP released a paper that explores "stackable credentials," which is defined by the Department of Labor as a series of credentials that accumulate to build an individual's qualifications for advancement on a career pathway. The paper discusses some of the barriers to acquiring multiple educational and occupations credentials, pulling from data collected in Kentucky, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The paper also outlines the ways in which these states are working to increase credential attainment for their residents.

This paper reviews the literature on the policy context of the HPOG program and the challenges and opportunities related to developing healthcare occupational training and support programs. It discusses the structure of the healthcare industry and trends in healthcare employment, implications of ACA for entry-level employment in healthcare, and resulting challenges and opportunities for training programs. (author overview)

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program, established by the Affordable Care Act of 2010, funds training programs in high-demand healthcare professions, targeted to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals. In 2010, the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded 32 HPOG grantees in 23 states with five-year grants. This Annual Report provides an overview of HPOG grantees, characteristics of participants, activities in which participants were engaged, training and employment outcomes, and how grantee programs continued to evolve in the second year of the program. (author abstract)

There is longstanding interest among policy makers and program operators in finding ways to increase the skill levels of low-income individuals, improve their enrollment in and completion of post-secondary education, and improve their economic prospects. The career pathways approach is gaining steady acceptance as a promising strategy to address these challenges and improve post-secondary education and training for low-income and low-skilled adults.

This brief focuses on the Innovative Strategies for Increasing Self-Sufficiency project; a major national effort to evaluate the effectiveness of nine career pathways programs using an experimental design. It summarizes the framework used to describe the career pathways approach and the theory of change that guides the evaluation. It then describes the nine programs in the evaluation, and concludes with the study’s research questions and data sources. Later reports and briefs will present findings from the evaluation and will be posted on the project website. (author abstract)

This report describes the evaluation design for the HPOG National Implementation Evaluation. The design focuses on the 27 non-tribal HPOG grantees and addresses: how health professions training programs are being implemented; changes to the service delivery system associated with program implementation; individual-level outputs and outcomes; and what key components and factors appear necessary or seem likely to contribute to the success of the programs. The evaluation involves three related analyses: a Descriptive Implementation Study, a Systems Change Analysis, and an Outcome Study. The report was written as part of the HPOG Implementation, Systems and Outcome Project and the HPOG National Implementation Evaluation, which are both led by Abt Associates in partnership with the Urban Institute. (author abstract)

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation released the HPOG Annual Report to highlight information regarding the program after its second year of operation. The report provides an overview of HPOG grantees, characteristics of participants, activities in which participants were engaged, training and employment outcomes, and how grantee programs continued to evolve in the second year of the program. The report was developed as part of the HPOG Implementation, Systems, and Outcome Project, which is being led by Abt Associates in partnership with the Urban Institute.

The Connecticut Employment & Training Commission released a report describing the most prominent State strategies for building and promoting career pathways. These strategies were pulled from a review of literature on career advancement strategies for low-skilled workers over the last decade.

This paper provides a review of formal research reports and published literature on implementation analysis. It defines implementation analysis, summarizing methodological issues and topics addressed by this type of analysis, and describes systems change analysis and its relationship to implementation analysis. The paper concludes with a summary of implications for the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) National Implementation Evaluation design. The paper was developed as part of the HPOG Implementation, Systems and Outcome Project, which is being led by Abt Associates in partnership with the Urban Institute. (author abstract)

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the Pima Community College (PCC) Pathways to Healthcare HPOG programs, are an approach to fill a vital need for skilled workers in the economy and offer low-wage workers the opportunity to obtain occupational and other skills and advance into the middle class.

This brief was produced by Abt Associates as part of the Innovative Strategies to Increase Self-Sufficiency (ISIS) project, a random assignment evaluation of nine promising career pathways programs that aim to improve employment and self-sufficiency outcomes for low-income, low-skilled individuals. (author abstract)