CEO Library

The brief highlights the service needs that interviewed Reentry Project (RP) participants reported when leaving incarceration; their barriers to employment; their experiences during and after they participated in the programs; their perspectives on program elements such as vocational training, supportive services, and job placement; and their recommendations for improvement.

Using data collected as part of the Reentry Project (RP) Grants Evaluation, the brief describes the differences and similarities between adult and young adult grantees in terms of the services they offered and the implementation challenges they reported. The analysis draws on quantitative data from a survey of all 116 organizations that received RP grants. Data from the grantee survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as chi-squared tests to determine whether differences across grant types were statistically significant.

The brief draws on a variety of sources, including survey responses from 89 Reentry Project (RP) grantees, interviews with RP program staff and partner organizations from 27 sites, interviews with 37 RP participants, interviews with 41 employers, and national workforce data from the Workforce Integrated Performance System (WIPS) all with the aim of describing the types of work-based learning (WBL) provided to RP participants, RP programs’ experiences in offering WBL opportunities to justice-involved individuals, and some lessons learned from offering WBL to the reentry population.

The Reentry Projects (RP) Grant Evaluation Design Pre-Specification Plan follows the template that evaluators must use to meet the pre-specification practices articulated in OMB Memo M-20-12 Phase 4 Implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018: Program Evaluation Standards and Practices.

The report presents the findings from the Reentry Project (RP) Grants implementation study, which includes analysis of data from virtual sites visits with 27 sites that received 2018 or 2019 grant or subgrant awards, a grantee survey administered to all 2017, 2018, and 2019 grantees, and Workforce Integrated Performance System (WIPS) records dating from program year (PY)2018 Q1 to PY2021 Q2 or July 1, 2018 to December 31, 2021. This report focuses on grantee survey findings and analysis of data from WIPS for 2018 and 2019 grantees.

In 2019, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractors Urban Institute, Mathematica Policy Research, and Capital Research Corporation to design and conduct analysis to build and expand the evidence portfolio on apprenticeships, including models, components, partnerships, and strategies that often include the work of community colleges. 

The brief develops a typology of five different models of youth apprenticeship expansion used by Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grants (YARG) grantees across their registered apprenticeship programs. The typology is based on information collected from the YARG grantee applications, follow-up clarification calls with grantees, and the grantees’ quarterly narrative reports to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The models are not proscriptive templates for individual registered apprenticeship program standards.

The report provides background on youth apprenticeship programs in the U.S. to provide context for finalizing the design of the implementation evaluation of the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grants (YARG). The report also summarizes the planned activities of the 14 grantees and the key features of each grantee’s youth apprenticeship model and discusses key issues to include in the implementation evaluation.

The report provides a snapshot of how Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) grantees adapted or expanded strategies to serve older workers in response to challenges faced during the pandemic. Strategies include (1) adopting new recruitment outreach, intake, and engagement activities; (2) promoting digital access and technology loaner programs; (3) providing training remotely; (4) adopting new host agency and employer strategies; and (5) implementing staffing strategies to support SCSEP participants’ needs.

The America’s Promise evaluation explored the strategies that regional partnerships used to engage with employers and the lessons they learned. The brief draws primarily on interviews with grantee and partner administrators and frontline staff collected through virtual site visits with 18 of the 23 America’s Promise partnerships in fall 2020. Across these 18 partnerships, advanced manufacturing was a target industry for 11 grant partnerships, health care for 9 grant partnerships, and information technology (IT) for 10 partnerships.

The report presents the findings from the America’s Promise Job-Driven Training Grants implementation study, which included virtual site visits, telephone interviews, a grantee survey, partner network survey, and Workforce Integrated Performance System (WIPS) data analysis, using data from 2017 to Q2 2021 and describes how the 23 America’s Promise partnerships used America’s Promise grants to provide sector-based employment and training services and form regional partnerships, including how the partnerships changed over time to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The evaluation of America’s Promise Job Driven Training (America’s Promise) provided a unique opportunity to hear directly from employers on their collaboration with the workforce development system. The brief draws on 31 interviews with employer representatives to describe why they chose to participate in regional workforce partnerships, how they helped shape partnership activities, what they perceived as successes and areas for improvement, whether they planned to sustain involvement, and what findings might provide insights for employer engagement more broadly.

The technical appendix to Experiences of America’s Promise Participants During the “COVID-19 Recession”: Examining Gender Differences in Labor Market and Training Program Outcomes (Spitzer et al. 2022): Section A describes the data sources used for this study, Section B describes the approach taken to analyze employment and earnings, and Section C describes the approach taken to analyze program completion and enrollment.

The brief describes the experiences of 54 veterans in Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP), the services they most appreciated, and gaps they perceived in the services. It describes veterans’ pathways to HVRP and their perceptions about the accessibility and responsiveness of HVRP grant staff, the helpfulness of the services, and how they were treated (such as whether they were treated respectfully). It concludes with their suggestions for improving HVRP.

Using data from the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP) grantee survey administered to grantees from program year 2020 and supplemented with interviews with staff from eight site visit grantees and their American Job Center (AJC) partners, the brief addresses three topics: (1) the AJC program in which a majority of HVRP participants were co-enrolled; (2) the percentage of participants receiving services at the AJC; and (3) the processes grantees used to co-enroll participants.

The brief describes the types of services Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP) participants received at America's Job Centers and compares the service receipt of HVRP participants with other veterans experiencing homelessness who were not participating in HVRP. The data are from the Workforce Integrated Performance System (WIPS) and include all HVRP participants and other veterans experiencing homelessness across the United States who enrolled in the Wagner-Peyser Employment Service at AJCs during program year 2019 or 2020.

The brief uses implementation study data from the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP) Evaluation to discuss four main areas of HVRP with potential gaps and opportunities for improvement. The four areas, which emerged from an analysis of qualitative and grantee survey data, are (1) coordination with other public workforce development programs, (2) expansion of HVRP eligibility to other veterans, (3) emphasis on veterans’ skills and interests for employment opportunities, and (4) coordination with the homeless response system.

The report presents the findings from the implementation evaluation of the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) Apprenticeship Pilot. The results of this descriptive study are intended to inform future efforts by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the U.S. Department of Defense to provide effective support to assist transitioning service members (TSMs) as they leave the military and move into civilian-sector jobs.

The paper examines whether gender differences in outcomes emerged following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic among a group of people who recently enrolled in training aimed at preparing workers for careers in “middle- to high-skilled” industries and occupations. These people received training through programs funded by America’s Promise grants, with most programs focusing on advanced manufacturing, health care, or information technology.

The America’s Promise Job Driven Grant Program Evaluation Design Pre-Specification Plan follows the template that evaluators must use to meet the pre-specification practices articulated in OMB Memo M-20-12 Phase 4 Implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018: Program Evaluation Standards and Practices.

The toolkit represents successful practices in negotiating agreements to obtain and use administrative data in U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) program evaluations. It includes detailed instructions, recommendations, and lessons learned on how to obtain data from various data providers including state workforce agencies, community colleges, criminal justice agencies, and other DOL grantees, primarily by establishing data use agreements.

The report provides findings from the implementation study for the Evaluation of the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP), which relied on data from (1) a survey of all program year 2020 HVRP grantees, (2) semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders from eight deliberately selected grantees and their community partners, and (3) in-depth interviews with veterans who received services from one of those eight grantees.

In 2016, the Employment and Training Administration, in partnership with the Chief Evaluation Office, awarded a contract to Abt Associates, with the Urban Institute, MEF Associates, W.E. Upjohn Institute, Capital Research Corporation, George Washington University, and McBassi & Company to evaluate the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) training programs across all 46 grantees, mostly community colleges. 

The AAI programs seek to: 

The report presents findings from the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) demonstration study that examined the impact of employer engagement efforts on employers’ take-up of registered apprenticeship. The primary data source is data collected by the two grantees (MassHire and Philadelphia Works) in the demonstration on their efforts to research, contact, and subsequently develop apprenticeship programs with employers.

The brief is part of the the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) evaluation, and is based on site visits and follow up clarification calls to 6 AAI grantees that constituted 7 State or local workforce development boards. The evaluation team talked primarily with staff in management and leadership positions, although some agencies invited direct-service staff, such as career counselors and business services staff, to join the conversation.