About the Report

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The Young Parents Demonstration (YPD) was a federal grant initiative, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (DOL/ETA) and Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) to test the effectiveness of enhanced services in improving educational and employment outcomes for at-risk parenting and expectant youth. The focus of this final report is on the four Round III community-based organizations awarded three-year grants in June 2011 totaling $5.5 million. YPD grantees were required to implement a differential experimental research design, whereby treatment group members received an additional level of services above and beyond the base level of services provided to the control group. The treatment intervention, which was mentoring services, was aimed at improving employment and earnings of participants, as well as improving chances that participants would obtain additional educational degrees and certifications.

In 2010, DOL/ETA contracted with Capital Research Corporation and The Urban Institute – along with subcontractors, Abt Associates/Abt SRBI, Westat, Inc., and The George Washington University – to conduct a process/implementation and impact evaluation of YPD. The aim of the implementation evaluation component was to provide DOL/ETA with a detailed description of the treatment and control group interventions as they were implemented in each site, including information about participant recruitment and intake procedures, participant flow through services, types and intensity of base and enhanced services made available to participants, grantee partnering with other organizations, key implementation challenges and how they were addressed, and program costs. The impact evaluation study component was aimed at estimating net impacts of the treatment intervention on educational, employment and earnings, welfare receipt, and other outcomes.

The report presents impact study results for the Round III YPD grantees, examining employment and earnings, educational outcomes, and other selected outcomes for young parents randomly assigned under the demonstration effort to treatment and control groups. Additionally, this report presents key findings and lessons learned from the implementation study component of the evaluation, which focused on the types and intensity of services provided under the intervention, as well as contextual factors and implementation challenges faced by the four Round III grantees.

Research Questions

• What were the enrollment goals under the demonstration effort, and did grantees achieve them?
• What were the characteristics of participants served by YPD and how did these characteristics vary across grantees?
• What types of services/assistance did treatment and control group participants receive under the demonstration?
• Were participants satisfied with the services they received?
• What were the overall costs and per participant costs of serving YPD participants and how did these costs vary across grantees?
• To what extent were there statistically significant differences in employment, earnings, education, and other outcomes for the treatment and control groups?
• How did net impacts on key outcomes of interest vary across YPD sites for the treatment and control groups?
• If net impacts were found between the treatment and control group in the short-term (e.g., two years after random assignment), were they sustained over a longer period of time (e.g., at five or more years after random assignment)?
• How did YPD impact results compare to results in past experimental studies targeting at-risk youth and young parents?

Key Takeaways

• Overall, the findings from the YPD evaluation (across the 17 YPD Rounds I through III grantees) show that the provision of enhanced services to young parents, on top of a substantial set of base services, had no measurable effect or a short-run effect that faded over time on participants’ earnings. In the case where mentoring was the enhanced service (Round III), YPD also did not have a measurable effect on other key outcomes such as educational attainment, public assistance receipt, family income, economic stability and family composition.
• For the Round III grantees, those implementing mentoring as the enhanced service, no measurable impacts were found for cumulative earnings in the short-run (18 months after random assignment) or in the long-term (four years after random assignment).

Citation

Trutko, J., Eyster, L., Vericker, T., O’Brien, C., Trutko, A., Mendonca, S., Dodkowitz, A., Sick, N. (2018). Capital Research Corporation. Young Parents Demonstration Program: Round III Grantee Implementation and Impact Results. Final Report. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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This study was sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy Development and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation, and was produced outside of CEO’s standard research development process.