The Economic Mobility Project authored this report on ways that students can increase their long-term earnings and the role of community colleges. Twenty-six percent of community college students come from low-income families, compared to 15 percent of four-year college students. Research shows that by receiving a community college degree, students can increase their earnings by an average of $7,900 annually, which is an earnings increase of 29 percent over those with a high school diploma.

This report is from the Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation. Religion and spirituality play a significant role in the lives of Americans, and this report is focused on how religiosity and spirituality affect outcomes for low-income families. Researchers provide an overview of the role of religiosity for low-income families in the areas of marriage and relationships, parenting, youth outcomes, mental and physical health, substance abuse, and crime and violence, homelessness, and employment.

Due to the economic climate, many workers have faced the unstable labor market with declining wages and job insecurity, and the effects take a larger toll on disadvantaged workers. Organizations that are currently serving disadvantaged workers are also facing challenges to matching their clients to employment opportunities, and organizations have been finding innovative approaches to employment through sectoral employment strategies, career pathways and transitional jobs. This resource, from Public/Private Ventures, provides an overview of alternative staffing strategies currently being utilized across the country to support job seekers and disadvantaged workers.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance (OFA) and Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and the United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) hosted a technical assistance teleconference for Newark, New Jersey’s Workforce Investment Administration. As an outgrowth of the OFA-sponsored Collaboration Initiative, Newark requested additional technical assistance on an innovative non-custodial parent initiative being integrated into the child support enforcement and workforce administrations in San Antonio, Texas.

The Children’s Future Initiative was designed to prepare young children for achieving successful outcomes in school in Trenton, New Jersey. From Public/Private Ventures, this report offers key strategies employed from the Initiative, and offers information on program implementation, participant recruitment, and collaborations among Trenton’s agencies. Early findings include that this effort has started making changes in the institutional level to help agencies better serve children from birth to age three.

Designed to serve as a guide for policymakers and practitioners, from Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), this piece outlines key strategies for replicating social programs. P/PV has had 30 years of experience designing, testing and replicating social programs, and this report outlines key structures that should be in place before replication is considered.

Authored by Anne Sparks at Ohio University, this National Poverty Center Working Paper outlines the implementation of the ‘Within My Reach’ Curriculum in Oklahoma. The program is included in a week of orientation activities for new TANF participants at the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. This paper provides results from interviews with TANF participants who participated in the program and findings suggest that this program has been successful in promoting relationship skills among this population.

The Collaboration Institute was held in Arlington, Virginia on September 15-17, 2008. The meeting was designed for teams from medium-sized urban areas composed of three partners representing senior level managers from TANF, Child Support Enforcement, and Workforce Development agencies. The Institute provided a hands-on intensive opportunity for strategic planning and culminated in the development of an action plan to be implemented upon return to participants’ jurisdictions. The areas of focus during the Institute were on: ways to increase collaboration between State and local TANF, Workforce Development, and Child Support Enforcement agencies; examining the close link between welfare, workforce development, and child support; understanding how collaborative efforts are addressing State work participation rates; and providing a platform for key issues in child support and workforce development that impact TANF participants.

This Webinar on Nonprofit Technologies included presentations from Timothy Tyndall, RAIN Distance Learning, Telemedicine and Rural Community Development Network and Phillip Brown, National Policy Director, Connected Nation, Inc.

This report was written for the U.S. Department of Labor, Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and Employment and Training Administration. The Reclamando Nuestro Futuro (Reclaiming our Future or RNF) program is run by the Latino Coalition for Faith and Community Initiatives of Bakersfield, California to assist at-risk and adjudicated Latino youths to obtain needed education or training, to find employment, and to avoid involvement with the juvenile justice system. This final report resulted from an evaluation of the program which includes outcomes experienced by participating youth in the program.