Learning Together: Building Stronger Practitioner-Researcher Partnerships
|
|
 David Fein, Principal Associate, Social and Economic Policy
Agencies for some time have provided evaluation funds to practitioners to support logistical aspects of randomized control trials (RCTs) and encourage them to open up their programs to scrutiny. But a growing coalition of agencies and researchers now aim to broaden practitioners’ role to encompass close involvement in research design, interpretation, and dissemination. The six years-and-counting collaboration between Abt Associates and Year Up – a leading non-profit youth development organization – offers clues for how to successfully build such partnerships.
|
|
What Career Pathway Participants Say about Challenges They Face
|
|
|
Even when programs offer a wide range of supports, career pathway participants most commonly cite financial challenges, academic worries, and family demands on their time as their primary concerns. This brief is one in a series of three that describe early lessons from in-depth interviews with Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) study participants. PACE is a 10-year random assignment evaluation of nine promising career pathways interventions aimed at increasing employment and self-sufficiency among low-income, low-skilled adults and youth. For this brief, respondents discussed their current and anticipated challenges in the program as part of a qualitative sub-study designed to improve understanding of participants’ experiences.
|
|
“It’s been a long time…It will be a challenge for me to learn…Pretty much start all over again, you know?...”
-PACE study participant
|
|
Risk Factors for College Success: Insights from Nine Career Pathways Programs
 In response to projected labor shortages in critical occupations, there is great interest in expanding pathways to post-secondary credentials for low-income adults. This paper analyzes risk factors for college enrollment and persistence for this population and considers the implications for intervention strategies. Analyses of baseline data from the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) evaluation show, among other things, strong relationships between college success and past educational experiences, economic status, and expected work hours.
|
|
SNAP to Skills Launches New Website
 SNAP to Skills (S2S) – a technical assistance effort for USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service – launched a new website in October. As a member of the project team led by the Seattle Jobs Initiative, Abt is helping to provide 10 states with tools and resources for developing job-driven SNAP Employment and Training (SNAP E&T) programs that help participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) build skills, find jobs, and work toward self-sufficiency. S2S’s technical assistance includes a series of policy briefs, webinars, and an annual convening on E&T innovation and best practices. Policy briefs include ways to build SNAP E&T programs and how job-driven E&T services can help Able-Bodied Adults without Dependents find work and avoid losing aid. In addition, a just announced 2017 SNAP E&T Learning Academy will extend S2S’s reach to more states to help them build high-quality, job-driven SNAP E&T programs.
|
|
How to Scale Up Exemplary Career Pathway Programs: A Case Study of Year Up
 Forecasted shortages of workers at middle-skill levels and above have stimulated efforts to identify and scale exemplary training programs targeting low-income youth and adults. This report chronicles the experience of scaling one promising program for youth ages 18-24 with a high school degree or equivalent credential: Year Up, an intensive, one-year program offering six months of customized training followed by a six-month internship with a major firm in fields with growing demand. After a dozen years of steady growth in its core stand-alone program, Year Up in 2012 began piloting an adaptation for community college settings. Year Up maintained strong outcomes while expanding the core program. Drawing on interviews with program leaders, the report distills lessons on expanding recruitment, scaling signature program services, and addressing cross-cutting challenges in scaling.
|
|
Wave 4 FMLA Surveys
 Enacted in 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) grants most U.S. employees certain rights and protections related to the taking of unpaid family or medical leave. The U.S. Department of Labor has since conducted three “waves” of surveys to understand the nation’s experience with the FMLA. Now, Abt Associates has been tapped to conduct a fourth wave, which will update and expand on the existing evidence about FMLA use and leave-taking, including assessments of the act’s influence on both the work-life balance of employees and the productivity and workflow of employers.
|
|
Career Pathways Long-Term Follow-Up Study
 The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has hired Abt Associates and its partner, MEF Associates, to conduct one of the first analyses of long-term impacts of career pathways programs. This study will build on two existing high-priority ACF studies, extending the time horizon for the impact analyses to six years and allowing for an exciting opportunity to discover important long-term program impacts.
|
|
Coaching-Focused Interventions for TANF Clients
 For several decades, ACF has engaged in extensive research on programs intended to support employment-related skills among Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants. Bringing together existing knowledge from behavioral science and executive functioning,Abt is working with Mathematica Policy Research to explore the application of coaching-focused interventions. The research team will evaluate up to three interventions through an implementation study led by Abt as well as a random assignment impact analysis.
|
|
 René Nutter joins Abt having previously served as a senior project manager for Decision Information Resources. She has led numerous research and evaluation projects, covering subjects including teen pregnancy prevention, early childhood language development, and post-secondary education. René has served as chief of staff with the U.S. Department of Labor, National Office of Job Corps and as a director of Job Corps centers. She holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Lake Erie College.
|
|
 David Kassabian has more than seven years of experience carrying out research on income security and workforce development issues. From 2010 to 2016 he served as a research associate with the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Policy Center. He joins Abt to work on projects across the company’s Income Security and Workforce practice. He holds a Master’s of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin.
|
|
|
