The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program provided education and occupational training to TANF recipients and other adults with low incomes. HPOG training is for healthcare occupations that pay well and may experience labor shortages or be in high demand. This report details common themes from interviews with working students of 14 HPOG 2.0 programs. It highlights common experiences and challenges they faced pursuing and completing their training, which include the competing demands of working to pay for household expenses and caring for family members. The report is part of a series of briefs describing lessons from HPOG 2.0 participants. The series aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of motivations for enrolling in a career pathways program; managing work, training, and life balance; and services that facilitate their success.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Workforce Investment will host a webinar on July 26, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET as part of a series on the role of the workforce system in serving individuals with Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Guest speakers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration will present a brief overview of the prevalence of addiction and the impact of stigma on employment for persons in recovery. There will also be discussion on the value of hiring persons in recovery in general across all employment sectors as well as the value of SUD peer workers for use across the SUD care system and in other human service sectors and healthcare systems. Speakers include an employer in a recovery community center who can attest to the value of hiring SUD peer workers and their role and function in engaging people with substance use disorders and strengthening recovery capital at the individual, family, and community levels.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) PeerTA connects TANF practitioners from across the U.S. to one another with relevant training and technical assistance. To that end, OFA extended an opportunity to State, Local, and Tribal TANF programs to participate in a virtual 3-part roundtable series titled: Work Opportunity Wednesdays (WOW) – Equipping TANF Recipients for Employment in a Post-COVID World.

This highly interactive series brought together TANF practitioners and subject matter experts to discuss current challenges and potential strategies for improving TANF recipient employment outcomes. This series included virtual sessions on Understanding Post-COVID Workforce Challenges, Future of Work Strategies to Improve Outcomes, and Action Planning: Oh…The Places They Can Go!.

Registration for this event is closed.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration hosted a webinar on July 21, 2022, which was a primer on the apprenticeship system and feature examples from the field in offering apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship experiences to youth and young adults. The webinar discussed the apprenticeship system, components of high-quality pre-apprenticeship programs, and how apprenticeships compare to other models of work-based learning. Presentations were made from groups on the ground who have implemented apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs for youth and young adults.

In 2018, the New Hampshire Recovery Friendly Workplace (RFW) initiative was launched to help address the statewide impacts associated with substance use disorder (SUD). This compendium of resources supports the RFW initiative to empower businesses as they create work environments that are supportive to those in or seeking recovery, in addition to those who may have a loved one with SUD. Through this initiative, workplaces:

• Receive support and guidance from Recovery Friendly Advisors, regional Public Health Networks, Recovery Community Organizations, and RFW Peer Champions
• Get connected to SUD-related information, trainings, and resources to better support employees and create a culture where conversations about issues related to mental health and SUD are encouraged
• Complete an RFW checklist process that results in an official RFW designation, the development of an RFW culture, and visibility that helps challenge the stigma around SUD

Research shows that young people with histories of child welfare involvement work less often and earn lower wages during the transition to adulthood than their peers without this experience. However, little is known about whether programs that aim to improve employment outcomes for youth with prior child welfare system involvement are actually improving employment outcomes. This brief reviews findings of formative evaluations for two employment programs—MY TIME in Chicago, Illinois, and iFoster Jobs in Los Angeles, California. These evaluations highlight the importance of building a better understanding of the variations in programs serving young people with histories of child welfare system involvement and how they bolster different developmental assets for young people.

This blogpost brings together a collection of evidence about the connections between economic and concrete supports and involvement with child welfare. The research findings show that child and family well-being can be promoted through state and federal policies that strengthen families, promote family economic security, and reduce child protective services involvement in the lives of families. A short video provides a high-level overview of Chapin Hall’s approach to this work.

This article outlines lessons learned from a study that looked at workforce development programs serving 16 to 24-year-olds that were convicted, adjudicated of, or charged with serious crimes in the juvenile or criminal justice system. Insights include the importance of strategic job placement to help youth explore their career interests while working toward stable and lasting employment, building partnerships with employers who are willing to hire young people with system involvement and subsidizing employment for employers who are hesitant to do so, and recognizing that young people are entrepreneurial and want to explore opportunities in fields like information technology and business.

The statutory language authorizing HPOG provides that funded grants should be “designed to provide eligible individuals with the opportunity to obtain education and training for occupations in the health care field that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high demand.” This report provides empirical analysis focusing on the first of these HPOG goals: training for healthcare jobs that “pay well.” It explores the prevalence of two possible training patterns that might lead to such jobs: direct entry into training for occupations requiring more/longer preparation (referred to as “Above-Entry-Level Training”), or a sequence of trainings, in a scheme consistent with the career pathways framework (referred to as “Follow-On Training”). Both rounds of HPOG (HPOG 1.0 and HPOG 2.0) emphasized utilizing a career pathways framework.

This brief shares lessons from four employment coaching programs that made major changes to their operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion provides employment programs information about modifying service delivery and meeting client needs. The lessons learned from the programs in this study may help other programs provide coaching during a public health crisis or other type of emergency.