For individuals on probation and those reentering their communities after incarceration, finding employment is often one of multiple challenges. Employment is an important factor in reentry, but getting to a place where the focus can be on a job, education, or a career requires support in other parts of life as well. The Los Angeles County Innovative Employment Solutions Program (INVEST) is designed to address the complex range of employment and supportive service needs and support individuals in pursuing their employment and career goals. This MDRC brief focuses on one of the unique features of the program: the array of supportive services that staff members can provide and tailor to individual client needs under a flexible spending model, which is enabled by the significant program funds reserved for supportive services and financial incentives and stipends in ways not often seen in traditional workforce programs.

Since 1996, many childless adults between the ages of 18 and 50 can only get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for three months in a 36-month period unless they are exempt or are able to document sufficient work hours. This vulnerable population includes veterans, youth aging out of foster care, individuals reentering the workforce after incarceration, and the chronically unhoused. Many of the people subject to time limits either cannot find jobs or get too few hours of work in the jobs they do have. This Food Research and Action Center’s research brief explains the SNAP time limit provisions and discusses priorities for outreach, proper screening for time limit exemptions, and use of discretionary exemptions and waivers for areas that have 10 percent or higher unemployment or other indicators of insufficient jobs.

The Skills and Experience for the Careers of Tomorrow (SECTOR) program provides employment and training services, cognitive behavioral interventions, and connections to mental health and substance use disorder services for people with previous legal system involvement. It uses a sector-based approach, which connects individuals to training opportunities that offer a livable wage, career advancement opportunities, and benefits for job seekers. The model anticipates that behavioral health, well-being, employment, and earnings improvements will reduce future interactions with the criminal legal system. This MDRC report presents the findings of the SECTOR program evaluation as part of the Los Angeles County Reentry Integrated Services Project. The evaluation focuses mainly on employment and criminal legal system contact and whether SECTOR successfully connects individuals to mental health and substance use disorder services.

Youth adults and young adults with disabilities (Y&YADs) are overrepresented in the justice system. Researchers estimate between 30-60% of youth in correctional facilities have a disability and are at an elevated risk of adverse outcomes, including unemployment and recidivism. The Center for Advancing Policy on Employment for Youth (CAPE-Youth) hosted a webinar on August 17, 2023 that provided an overview of approaches states can take to develop effective transition services, highlighted rehabilitation and recovery practices that improve long-term opportunities for justice-involved youth and young adults with disabilities, and discussed educational and economic supports that improve employment outcomes for youth exiting the justice system. The webinar was a followup to an earlier roundtable discussion on the same topic hosted by CAPE-Youth and the White House Office of Public Engagement, as summarized in this brief.

The child support program serves parents in the context of their community. Child support agencies work with community-based organizations to help meet parent needs,and enhance the success of families in child support programs. This compendium reflects the diversity of child support partnerships across the country; it includes resources and fact sheets on employment, reentry, family violence, responsible fatherhood, homelessness, parental education, and preventing the need for child support services by addressing the importance of being emotionally and financially prepared to support a child.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) provides programming and support to help ensure that individuals released from federal custody can successfully transition from prison to the community. This transition can be challenging, and many returning citizens ultimately reengage with the criminal justice system at some point. Preparing returning citizens for employment and supporting them through the reentry and employment processes can improve reentry outcomes and strengthen communities. To explore challenges and opportunities associated with improving employment outcomes among BOP releasees, the National Institute of Justice hosted a virtual workshop of BOP staff, community-based reentry service providers, researchers, national employers, and other experts. This RAND Corporation report summarizes discussion points from the workshop and presents a wide-ranging set of needs identified by workshop participants.

Stable employment helps build a solid foundation for youth as they enter adulthood. Some youth involved in the justice system—especially for serious offenses—may face increased barriers to finding and securing employment. This blogpost features the results from a national scan of workforce programs that identify strategies that may help overcome these challenges. The research identifies common features of quality community-based workforce development programs that serve youth and young adults with criminal or juvenile records. The scan also notes common program offerings, promising practices, and marks of a supportive infrastructure. The information collected helps identify the kinds of organizational structures, partnerships and collaboration that are essential to helping young people with records succeed in the workforce.

This podcast highlights the SOAR Program at Tri-County OIC, which is affiliated with the Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania region. SOAR is a reentry program for young adults (ages 18 to 24) who have been involved in the criminal justice system. The comprehensive program offers customized academic training, vocational training, intense case management, and stackable/portable credentials training. Part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Voice of Experience video series, the podcast is presented by SOAR Project Manager Christina Johnson.

The University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty will host a webinar on September 15, 2021 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET to explore approaches to better serve children with an incarcerated parent. Presentations will examine the costs of children being separated from their parents due to incarceration, research on how to improve outcomes for children and their parents, and efforts made by law enforcement agencies and their partners to serve these families more effectively. Speakers include Julie Poehlmann-Tynan and Pajarita Charles, both from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Dane County (Wisconsin) Sheriff Kalvin Barrett.

This report evaluates the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB), which sought to increase housing stability and reduce jail stays among chronically homeless persons with prior frequent involvement with the criminal justice and emergency health systems. Under Denver SIB, supportive housing was provided through a Housing First approach (which had no preconditions or requirements for participants) and a modified Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model. ACT is a multidisciplinary team-based approach to deliver supportive services, such as case management, crisis intervention, substance use counseling, mental health treatment, peer support, skills building, and connection to primary care.