This report summarizes findings of a literature review on the use of navigators, their roles and responsibilities, and their impact on workforce development, education, and social services. It covers reports and studies published between 2010 and 2021, and provides bibliographic references for additional research.

The review examines the use of navigators across workforce development and related programs, including an exploration of the following programs: the Disability Program Navigator and the Disability Resource Coordinator, the Personal Navigator of the Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment, the Workforce Innovation Fund Housing and Employment Navigator Program, Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training College and Career Navigator, the Single Stop Coordinator, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Navigator, and the Affordable Care Act Navigator.

Service navigators provide information about supports and services within complex systems to help individuals or families navigate them. Navigators may offer possible solutions to program access challenges by coordinating services, increasing knowledge via education, and even promoting systems change efforts that reduce barriers to access and make service delivery more welcoming to targeted populations. The use of navigators emerged in patient care in the early 1990s and has since expanded to workforce development, education, and social services programs.

Key findings include:

• Navigators serve both participant-facing and system-facing roles, depending on the specific program. Participant-facing activities incorporate a wide variety of direct service functions, including making referrals, coaching recipients, and providing case manager services. System-facing activities are internal to the program, including addressing policies and procedures that could create barriers for users, cultivating closer and more effective inter-system partnerships, leading teams, and providing capacity development and knowledge to those who perform the service delivery.
• Navigator activities can be grouped into seven areas: recruitment and uptake, engagement, direct service, referral and direction, partner and system coordination, policy and procedural improvement, and capacity building.
• Five causal studies included in the review indicated that programs offering navigator support had mixed to positive impacts on participant outcomes. In postsecondary education, participants receiving navigator services and more direct contact with their navigators had higher semester-to-semester persistence and higher weighted grade point averages. In workforce programs, navigator services were associated with higher employment rates, and higher likelihood of receiving federal disability benefits, but had limited or no impact on earnings or housing stability.