Summer youth employment programs (SYEPs) are a workforce development strategy used around the country to provide early work experiences to young people each year. These programs partner with local employers to provide subsidized wages for young people between the ages of 14 and 24. The programs often include job-readiness training (which prepares…

Across the country, as technology continues to advance rapidly, the labor market exhibits a growing need for workers who receive frequent and ongoing skill development. Employers in many fields struggle to find adequately trained workers to meet their needs. Community college noncredit career and technical education (CTE) programs are an important…

Job Corps is the largest and most comprehensive education and job training program in the United States for young people ages 16 to 24 who are not in school or working. Most students live at and take classes at its approximately 120 residential centers. To explore ways to improve student outcomes and reduce per-student costs, Job Corps pilot…

Postsecondary education and middle-skills occupational training are viewed as important paths to higher-paying jobs and careers. Lifelong learning pathways geared toward working learners aged 25 and older also seem essential for career advancement and professional growth in the current job market. However, many learners face financial and other…

This brief highlights lessons from the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) Centers of Excellence model, which has redesigned each of the system's seven campuses as a "college-to-career center" and consolidated academic programs in high-demand industries at particular campuses. The model incorporates features of sectoral training programs,…

The Families Forward Demonstration (FFD) examined new strategies to increase the earnings of parents who owe child support but are unable to fully meet their obligations due to low earnings. It also focused on "responsive" child support services that helped parents understand their support obligations, and even suspended certain…

The Reconnecting Youth project aims to systematically understand what programs and practices are available in the United States to support young people who experience disconnection from school and work during the transition period to adulthood (typically defined as ages 16 to 24). It focuses specifically on services to help them reconnect to…

There is a longstanding debate about whether helping welfare recipients quickly find work or helping them to first obtain some basic education and training better improves their economic well-being. This brief contributes to the debate by presenting long-term findings from three sites in the seven-site National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work…

The Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™ initiative, a nationwide project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, aims to improve education and employment outcomes for young people ages 15 to 25 who have been involved in the child welfare and justice systems or who are experiencing homelessness. Young people eligible for LEAP are likely to be…

This report summarizes the two-year findings of a rigorous random assignment evaluation of the WorkAdvance model, a sectoral training, and advancement initiative. Launched in 2011, WorkAdvance goes beyond the previous generation of employment programs by introducing demand-driven skills training and a focus on jobs that have career pathways. The…

Family Rewards was an innovative approach to poverty reduction in the United States that was modelled on the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs common in lower- and middle-income countries. The program offered cash assistance to poor families to reduce immediate hardship, provided they met certain criteria related to family health care,…

Family Rewards was an innovative approach to poverty reduction in the United States that was modeled on the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs common in lower- and middle-income countries. The program offered cash assistance to low-income families, provided that they met certain conditions related to family health care, children's education,…

Despite progress on many fronts, young men of color still face many obstacles to success in American society and suffer disproportionately from economic and social disadvantage. In recent years, foundations and state and local governments have launched major initiatives to address this pressing issue. For example, in 2011, the City of New York…

Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards, an experimental, privately funded, conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to help families break the cycle of poverty, was the first comprehensive CCT program in a developed country. Launched in 2007 by New York City's Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), Family Rewards offered cash assistance to low-income…

This report analyzes the experiences of welfare "cyclers," a group that has received relatively little attention in previous research on welfare dynamics. For this study, "cycling" is defined as receipt of welfare benefits during three or more discrete spells during a four-year observation period. The goals of this report are to understand the…