This toolkit, provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, provides a guide for States and localities interested in developing a career pathways initiative. The toolkit centers around six key elements that are essential to developing an initiative. Promising practices are highlighted, and specific tools are included in this step by step, user friendly resource for human service administrators.

Aspen Institute's Workforce Strategies Initiative report highlights the numerous challenges adult learners face as they attempt to enter community college, persist to completing a certificate or degree, and successfully transition to employment. The report also provides various examples on how nonprofit organizations and community colleges have worked together to help adult learners overcome these challenges.

McKinsey & Company's Center for Government (MCG) released a report titled, "Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works." This report examines dual global crises, the high levels of youth unemployment, and a shortage of job seekers with critical skills. The report discusses how a country can resolve this issue and bring young people from education to employment, examining more than 100 education-to-employment initiatives from 25 countries. In addition to this, a survey of youth, education providers, and employers in nine countries that are diverse in geography and socioeconomic contexts is assessed. Lastly, the report focuses on skill development, giving special attention to the mechanisms that connect education to employment

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.