From its design, apprenticeship was meant to be a pathway for youth to gain skills and employment. However, with time, the system has morphed and the typical apprentice in California is closer to the age of 30 than to 16. Apprenticeship has largely ceased to be a pathway of choice for young people to access careers and has instead turned into an opportunity that’s only pursued after other roads have turned into dead ends. This New America blogpost looks at California’s Master Plan for Career Education. This plan will provide an opportunity for the state to make clear what it means for apprenticeship to serve young people in California.

In today’s rapidly evolving job market, becoming and staying relevant requires targeted training with specialized skills to align with top industries seeking talent. The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals (NAWDP) is hosting a webinar on January 24, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. CT where their experts will guide attendees through a virtual career training certification prep, ed2go. Presenters will share how ed2go enables NAWDP’s partners to target and train according to local demand, why industry-recognized credentials help candidates stand out, and how attendees can implement a similar course program for their organization.

Economic empowerment is often a critical need for people who have experienced human trafficking, from their moment of exit through their long-term recovery. An increasing number of anti-trafficking service providers are beginning to address these needs, offering programs focused on financial literacy, job training, cash assistance, and more. Yet there is little guidance for practitioners as they support the economic well-being of anti-trafficking program participants. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation guide is intended to serve as a foundation for organizations considering starting, expanding, or refining programs addressing economic empowerment of people with lived experience of human trafficking.

The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse is a website funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE). The website summarizes decades of research on programs and interventions that aim to improve employment outcomes for people with low incomes. In this Clearinghouse video, OPRE’s Clare DiSalvo talks with former state TANF administrator Ella Gifford-Hawkins about how TANF and other program providers can use the Clearinghouse to make evidence-informed decisions as they design, adapt, and seek to strengthen their programs and improve the odds that the job seekers they serve will succeed in the labor market.

LifeSet is an intensive case management program that prepares young people in foster care for the transition to adulthood. LifeSet specialists meet weekly with youth to provide individualized, intensive services as youth work towards self-defined goals in areas such as housing, employment, education, and money management. This Chapin Hall report presents findings from the Phase II evaluation of LifeSet’s implementation by three child services providers in Illinois. Phase II evaluation activities included focus groups with LifeSet specialists; interviews with LifeSet supervisors, licensed program experts, and young people who participated in LifeSet; and an analysis of both Department of Children and Family Services administrative data and GuideTree program data from Youth Villages.

Over the past three years, the Michigan Center for Student Success (MCSS) at the Michigan Community College Association has focused on implementing the statewide Strengthening MiWorkforce Pathways project. The workforce-focused initiative is one of many system-level efforts among states in the greater Student Success Center Network that embrace and recognize learner agility and learning that happens outside the traditional classroom. The explicit focus on credit for industry credentials provides a framework for state-level strategies supporting community colleges’ efforts to improve student completion rates. This Jobs for the Future post provides an overview of MCSS as well as focus areas for future considerations to support colleges in their efforts to establish equitable credit for prior learning policies and practices.

Federal and state funding for infrastructure, workforce and economic development, and apprenticeship expansion are flowing into states and regional and local entities. These funds are aimed at the needs of industry, creating equitable pathways to well-paying work, and advancing the workforce development goals of federal and state government agencies. The new funding brings challenges around coordination and ensuring it works well with existing workforce development efforts. This AIR blogpost describes two of the primary challenges that come with the new funding and promising solutions to address them.

Registered Apprenticeships are recognized as a key strategy to improving job quality and creating access to good-paying jobs for all, including populations historically underrepresented – women, people of color, and individuals with a disability – and underserved populations. The U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau will be hosting a webinar on November 16, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. ET to 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss creating access to good-paying jobs for youth and young adult women. It will highlight the importance of educating young women on the advantages of apprenticeship, feature programs and training opportunities, discuss recruitment strategies, and share information on Department of Labor apprenticeship programs.

The success sequence is discussed in the context of policy approaches for reducing poverty and improving economic opportunity for adolescents and young adults. It refers to a series of milestones in life associated with escaping poverty and joining the middle class, most commonly including high school completion, full-time employment, and waiting for marriage to have children. Policy approaches influenced by the success sequence theory emphasize educational programming and public awareness campaigns to spread knowledge around the importance of following success sequence milestones to achieve economic self-sufficiency. This Mathematica report is the third in a series on the success sequence conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services. This report presents findings from this mixed-methods study that investigates the factors associated with following the success sequence and economic self-sufficiency. 

Access the first report and second report here.

Employment coaching is increasingly considered an alternative to traditional case management in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other employment programs. In employment coaching, coaches work collaboratively with participants to set individualized goals. These goals could be directly related to finding, keeping, or advancing in a job, or could be indirectly related to employment, such as completing education or training programs. This Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation brief describes the lessons learned about the coach–participant relationship from talking with coaching program staff and participants as part of the Evaluation of Employment Coaching for TANF and Related Populations. It discusses the benefits of strong coach–participant relationships, approaches to building them, program features that can affect them, and how program leaders can promote them.