Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the implementation of the Employment Retention and Advancement Project (ERA)’s Career Builders Program. The program was designed to help people find careers in which they would succeed. Programs were offered at two sites in Oregon. The target population included people who received TANF and experienced a pause in their employment or who received TANF within two years prior to the study starting.
- The study authors conducted an implementation evaluation using records, participant surveys, and site visits.
- The study found that Career Builders was not implemented as planned due to lack of support and funds (e.g., the program did not implement the postemployment services). Therefore, the services that were offered were similar to the services already offered through the existing program. Due to the inability to implement the program as planned, 9 months after random assignment, Career Builders was stopped.
- The study’s limitations included insufficient details about the design, data collection, and data analysis.
- The embedded impact study was reviewed by CLEAR in September 2016.
Intervention Examined
Career Builders Program
Features of the Intervention
- Type of organization: Department of Human Services.
- Location / setting: Multi-site in Oregon.
- Population served and scale: 634 adults who received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and/or a pause in employment.
- Industry focus: Not Included
- Intervention activities: Education and training; Case management; Peer support; Employment support.
- Organizational partnerships: Community Colleges
- Cost: Not Included
- Fidelity: Not Included
From 1999 to 2009, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Labor funded ERA. ERA consisted of multiple programs that aimed to understand which efforts were effective in helping people remain employed and continue to advance in their employment. These programs provided education and training and specifically aimed to help people who received TANF benefits and people who were low-income.
One of these programs was the Portland Career Builders Program. Prior to Career Builders, Portland had a Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program, which ran from 1993 to 1996. This JOBS program increased earnings and employment and reduced welfare receipt. In 1996, JOBS was redesigned into a new program, "Steps to Success," which offered voluntary training, education, job search and employment services, case management, and additional TANF services for those qualified. After employment, Steps to Success services were limited. Career Builders was created to improve Steps to Success and specifically to benefit people who switch between receiving and not receiving TANF. Unlike Steps to Success, a central focus of Career Builders was to address barriers to obtaining and maintaining a job (e.g., help addressing personal problems, continued support after obtaining a job).
Career Builders began with a two-week daily course which aimed to identify clients' strengths, skills, career options, and barriers to past and future employment. The goal of this course was to help people find careers in which they would succeed. Career Builders also offered case management in a team format which consisted of a case manager as well as people to support mental health, employment, and connection with community resources. Additionally, Career Builders provided referrals for training and education programs and offered peer support classes.
Features of the Study
The authors conducted an implementation study using records, participant surveys, and site visits. The authors did not clarify which data were used for the implementation study and which were used for the impact study. The authors also did not provide information about statistical analysis. The sample included 634 participants across both groups (316 in the control group and 318 in the Career Builders group). The sample was 95.7% female, 7.2% Hispanic, 39.4% Black, 42.7% White, and 10.7% other race/ethnicity. The average age of participants was 30.4. Most participants had young children (under 6 years old).
Findings
Intervention activities/services
- The study found that each site implemented programs differently. One office's program was focused on placements for vocational training while the other focused on removing barriers.
- The study found that some staff did not embrace the ideology of the program which impacted program implementation.
- The study found that as compared to the program's design, the implementation included fewer postemployment services.
- The study found that despite high levels of completion of the two-week course offered at the beginning of the program and high levels of staff communication with participants, many participants did not receive any of the other services offered.
- The study found some differences between the services used by the control and Career Builders (treatment) groups. Treatment participants had more career and personal assessments, received more supportive services, and completed more plans related to personal development. The control group had more involvement with services related to employment (e.g., short trainings and job search).
Implementation challenges and solutions
- The study found that it was challenging to recruit participants; despite planning to enroll 2,000 people, only 634 people were enrolled after random assignment.
- The study found that staff did not have sufficient time to dedicate to the Career Builders participants. To keep Career Builders case managers’ caseloads low, the program planned to limit their cases to Career Builders participants only. However, due to a shortage of TANF case managers, Career Builders case managers also assisted TANF clients. Additionally, one office did not transfer non-Career Builders cases to other case managers as planned. Thus, case managers were not able to maintain low caseloads and were limited in their ability to provide Career Builders services as planned (e.g., postemployment support).
- The study found that fewer resources were allocated to the program than planned due to Oregon Department of Human Services budget cuts, which led to a decrease in the postemployment services that were provided.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The authors did not provide details about the data collection and analysis methods.