ConnectEd released a video about the Exploring College and Career Options (ECCO) curriculum, developed by MDRC and Bloom Associates, which includes lessons and activities that help students prepare for college and careers that expose them to real-world experiences on college campuses and in the workplace.

The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) has released a guide for Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) in a report titled Navigating Federal Programs to Build Sustainable Career Pathways in the Health Professions. This report explains the requirements and performance accountability systems of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the workforce and adult education programs supported under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Titles I and II. The report also discusses specific strategies that States can use to overcome potential barriers caused by the disparate requirements of these programs.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) has recently released the Engaging Employers to Support Adult Career Pathways Programs issue brief as part of their ongoing effort to support the development of high-quality Adult Career Pathway (ACP) programs. The new issue brief provides strategies and promising practices that support States and programs tackling the issue of employer engagement.

CLASP has released an updated resource entitled, Funding Career Pathways and Career Pathway Bridges: A Federal Funding Toolkit. This toolkit is designed to help interagency State teams identify and facilitate 'braiding' of Federal resources to build career pathways for adults and out-of-school youth. This new edition includes State and local examples and revised program profiles reflecting critical legislative and administrative changes to key Federal programs. A new appendix identifies ten Federal funding sources that can be used to provide a wide range of support services.

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program was established by the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) to provide training programs in high-demand health care professions to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals. Beginning in 2010, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided five-year grants to 32 grantees in 23 states across the United States. HPOG grantees include post-secondary educational institutions, workforce investment boards (WIBs), state or local government agencies, and non-profit organizations (NPOs). Five grantees are Tribal organizations. In their first year of funding, HPOG grantees were able to launch their programs and enroll and train substantial numbers of participants. This brief describes the HPOG Program and progress made by grantees in the first year of funding. It also describes the evaluation efforts sponsored by ACF to assess the success of the HPOG Program. (author abstract)

MDRC released a policy memo as part of their "Looking Forward" series, providing policymakers with suggested ways to make progress on critical issues. This policy memo describes some promising college readiness programs that can provide students with the skills they need to successfully complete college.

In March of 2012, the WPTA Network collaborated with Arkansas's Career Pathways Initiative - a partnership between Arkansas's Department of Higher Education and Department of Workforce Services - to learn more about their program's growth and the successes with workforce-ready adults.

This podcast highlights the Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative (CPI), which provides a comprehensive set of academic and support services designed to enable low-income, low-skilled individuals to acquire the degrees and/or credentials required to obtain and hold jobs in high-demand, high-wage industries. Staff from the Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative explained the complexity of the collaborations necessary to provide services that enable low-income job seekers to receive educational services, as well as how to help participants understand the importance of education in addition to work activities and employment.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Competency Model Clearinghouse (CMC) is an online resource that provides validated industry competency models that can be used as the basis of educational programs and curricula for a variety of industry sectors. The CMC also offers two tools designed to help businesses, educators, and workforce professionals achieve their talent development goals: the Build a Competency Model Tool and the Build a Career Ladder/Lattice Tool.

The Office of Family Assistance hosted a Webinar on August 28, 2012 to provide Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) agencies, workforce organizations, and other human services stakeholders with an overview of the strategies that can be used to provide low-income individuals with stackable credentials that will lead to long-term, sustainable employment. The Webinar featured information on what stackable credentials and career pathways are and how they can help low-income individuals achieve success. Presenters also provided information on methods for stackable credential/career pathways program design, as well as methods for integrating these components into transitional jobs and subsidized employment programs, and encouraged collaboration between government agencies and community partners to better serve TANF participants. Presenters included representatives from Heartland Human Care Services - Heartland Alliance, the Minnesota FastTRAC Initiative, the New York City Parks Opportunity Program (POP), and the Edmonds Community College HPOG program - Creating Access to Careers in Healthcare (CATCH).

The Center on Law and Social Policy's Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success launched the Alliance for Quality Career Pathways (AQCP). The goal of the AQCP is to identify benchmarks for measuring high-quality career pathways programs. Currently, at least 10 States are conducting Statewide career pathways programs. Successful career pathways programs are tailored to the local context, so there is no one-size-fits-all model, but the goal of the AQCP is to identify a broad range of benchmarks that can be applicable to multiple industries, target populations, and program designs.