The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated inequities and fragilities inherent in existing child care markets and decimated the supply of child care in many communities. Despite being deemed essential to the nation’s economy, the early care and education workforce experiences high turnover, low pay and benefits, and limited opportunities for professional development and advancement—all of which undermines the quality and continuity of care for young children. This blogpost identifies three lessons drawn from research which can help increase opportunities for advancement and upward mobility for the child care workforce.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration has announced a funding opportunity under the Workforce Pathways for Youth demonstration grant program. Workforce Pathways for Youth demonstration grants support national out-of-school time (OST) organizations that serve historically underserved and marginalized youth ages 14 to 21. Funding will also support partnerships between workforce development boards and youth-serving organizations. Applications are due by April 25, 2022.

Providing access to tangible resources can strengthen families and communities by avoiding and de-escalating crises, reducing parental stress, increasing access to safe housing and reliable childcare, and ensuring children have the material items they need to thrive. This brief discusses the impact of community-based strategies, connections, and collaborations that offer economic supports to address families’ basic needs, keeping children safe and families together. These include housing supports, food assistance, financial supports, employment assistance, early care and education services, legal services, and medical and behavioral health care.

This playbook, developed in collaboration between the National Community Action Partnership and the American Public Human Services Association, explores how Community Action and human services agencies partnered together in response to the COVID-19 public health and economic crisis. It presents opportunities for alignment in providing whole family supports, making career pathways possible for SNAP recipients, and tackling structural inequities in accessing services. Examples of these alignments include western Maryland and Virginia (whole family supports), Minnesota and Oregon (SNAP Employment & Training), and rural Ohio and Montgomery County, Maryland (dismantling structural inequities).

Employers’ role in creating workplace policies and practices and the work environment has increased relevance for low-wage and historically marginalized workers because these persons often work in occupations with greater job and schedule instability and have fewer workplace protections and benefits. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief discusses how employer-based work-family interventions can impact work and non-work outcomes for low-wage workers and their families, reviews select literature on work-family interventions, and provides strategies to engage and encourage employers to participate in studies of work-family interventions.

Workforce training programs in the United States have delivered inconsistent returns on investment to workers seeking better opportunities in the labor market. Hosted by WorkRise and J-PAL North America, this webinar on March 9, 2022 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET will discuss the power of randomized controlled trials in generating evidence to inform and guide decisionmaking and investment in workforce training. Speakers will share insights from a WorkRise-funded evaluation of the Pursuit Fellowship, a sectoral employment program that equips adults from under-resourced communities with the necessary skills to build careers in the high-wage technology sector.

What can we learn from decades of research on interventions designed to boost employment and earnings for people with low incomes? The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize findings from more than 220 interventions and 300 studies to gain new insights into evidence on what works. The Clearinghouse will host a webinar on March 9, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET to discuss these findings and address three primary questions:

• What interventions work to improve the employment and earnings of people with low incomes?
• Do the interventions work best for particular groups of people? If so, which groups?
• In what contexts do interventions appear to be most successful?

Panelists will also describe how practitioners and policymakers can use the findings to best meet the needs of populations seeking gainful employment.

The Pathways Clearinghouse Guide is for researchers conducting rigorous evaluations of interventions that aim to improve employment outcomes, reduce employment challenges, and support self-sufficiency for people with low incomes. It introduces the Pathways Clearinghouse, which identifies interventions that aim to directly or indirectly improve employment outcomes and systematically evaluates and summarizes the evidence of interventions’ effectiveness. Researchers and research funders can use this high-level overview to better understand the Pathways Clearinghouse and its processes for selecting studies for review, assigning study quality ratings, and assessing the evidence of effectiveness for an intervention.

The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals will host a Virtual Academy from March 7 to March 9, 2022 designed to provide participants with common knowledge of the workforce development field. Topics to be covered include Changing the Narrative in Workforce Development, Career Planning for the Client and the Workforce Professional, Understanding and Utilizing Labor Market Information, Building Effective Partnerships, Working with Special Populations, Program Development and Implementation, and Effective Outreach Strategies. Upon completing the Academy, participants will leave with a deeper knowledge of workforce development practices, a set of innovative ideas and approaches, and strategies to implement processes. There is a registration fee to attend the Virtual Academy.