Many parents receiving assistance from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) face serious barriers to employment. Sometimes called the “hard to employ,” these parents typically require enhanced assistance to prepare for, find, and keep jobs. Health issues and disability, substance abuse, criminal records, domestic violence, limited education, and responsibilities for disabled children or parents all stand in the way. Federal TANF rules influence state policies toward the hard to employ. Yet states vary considerably in approaches to serving this population. (author abstract)

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced the availability of nearly $20 million in grant funds to provide youth offenders with employment-related training and supportive services to improve their long-term employment prospects. This funding will provide former offenders, ages 14 and older, with targeted training for high-growth industries and in-demand occupations in their communities. DOL anticipates awarding four $5 million grants that will be targeted at serving youth offenders in high-poverty, high-crime communities. Any non-profit organization with 501(c)(3) status with the capacity to implement multi-site, multi-state projects can apply for this funding. The solicitation for grant applications can be found at http://www.doleta.gov/grants/find_grants.cfm. Applications must be received by 4 p.m. Eastern Time on May 1, 2012.

This resource is from the Community Capacity Development Office (CCDO) of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to understand the needs of Indian Country Weed and Seed communities. Weed and Seed is a community-based, multiagency strategy involving law enforcement, crime prevention, and community revitalization, which is aimed to prevent, control, and reduce violent crime, drug abuse, and gang activity in high-crime neighborhoods. This report is designed to assist Tribal justice practitioners, administrators, and policymakers in designing and developing reentry strategies for offenders returning to their Tribal communities.

Almost 700,000 people are released from state prisons each year. Ex-prisoners face daunting obstacles to successful reentry into society, and rates of recidivism are high. Most experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition, but ex-prisoners have great difficulty finding steady work. This report presents interim results from a rigorous evaluation of the New York City-based Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), a highly regarded employment program for ex-prisoners. CEO participants are placed in paid transitional jobs shortly after enrollment; they are supervised by CEO staff and receive a range of supports. Once they show good performance in the transitional job, participants get help finding a permanent job and additional support after placement. CEO is one of four sites in the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, which is sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with additional funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. The project is being conducted under contract to HHS by MDRC, a nonprofit research organization, along with the Urban Institute and other partners. The impacts of CEO’s program are being assessed using a rigorous research design. In 2004-2005, a total of 977 ex-prisoners who reported to CEO were assigned, at random, to a program group that was eligible for all of CEO’s services or to a control group that received basic job search assistance. So far, the two groups have been followed for two years after study entry. (author abstract)

On April 28th, 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that about $7.2 million in funding has been distributed among 18 different third-generation grantee organizations. This funding will support programs that assist former offenders return from incarceration, integrate into their communities and gain job skills. Three years after many offenders have been released from prison, 60% will be charged with a new crime, and 66% of those charged will return to prison. The U.S. Department of Labor aims to decrease these statistics by supporting the integration of former offenders into their communities and the workforce.

MDRC is currently conducting an impact evaluation of the New York City-based Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO). This report presents the interim results from the CEO program, which is a transitional jobs program designed to help former prisoners increase longer-term employment and reduce recidivism. Overall, results show that the program has had the highest rate of reductions in recidivism for the highest risk former prisoners. Researchers suggest similar transitional jobs initiatives target the highest risk population with the highest likelihood of reoffending.

Chapin Hall and the Urban Institute hosted this Thursday’s Child policy forum on how large public agencies as well as smaller community-based organizations can best meet the needs of their target populations and improve service delivery. Recent studies on five services- mental health care, substance abuse treatment, foster care, adult incarceration, and juvenile incarceration-show that 23 percent of Illinois families using multiple services accounted for 86 percent of the funding spent on those services.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network (WPTA) offered technical assistance to the AdvoCare Conference with the primary purpose of creating a nationwide task force of organizations and agencies that can provide proven evidence-based practice plans and ideas for innovative crime prevention, prisoner reentry, and family unification using collaboration models. The Task Force's long term goal would be to ultimately provide technical assistance to others. The Welfare Peer TA Network brought together specialists from prisoner reentry, social services agencies, and judicial communities to form a task force that could solidify a process that could be used to shape a cohesive prisoner reentry program and reduce the risk for those currently receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and those who may potentially become TANF participants. The Task Force work group and sessions were held in Winchester, Virginia on July 23rd-24th, 2009.

The Ready4Work initiative is jointly funded through the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration (DOL ETA), the U.S. Department of Justice, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Ford Foundation. This is a guide that was authored through Public/Private Ventures and examines the early implementation of Ready4Work and reports on the best emerging practices in four key program areas. Last year, around 650,000 adults were released from prisons in the United States. Therefore, engaging reentering individuals into the workforce is particularly important for States and counties.