The NTJN wants to hear from you!

Do you work with an exceptional employer who deserves to be recognized for their strong commitment to the TJ strategy? Transitional Jobs work because of relationships with quality employers, and the NTJN would like your help in highlighting this critical partnership at our upcoming Conference. Please use the form provided to nominate an employer you think should be honored nationally for their dedication to this workforce strategy. NTJN staff will select one nominee to honor at the Conference.

Click here to download the nomination form.

The Prisoner Reentry Institute has released, Venturing beyond the Gates: Facilitating Successful Reentry with Entrepreneurship. The report explores the viability of entrepreneurship as an employment strategy during reentry. Venturing beyond the Gates is a highly practical and informative tool for professionals in the fields of workforce development, economic development, criminal justice, and entrepreneurship. Some highlights of the report:

• A set of five opportunities to facilitate successful reentry with entrepreneurship, including strategies for developing and sustaining a national initiative focused on bridging these fields;
• Profiles and case studies detailing the experiences of microenterprise programs that are currently collaborating with correctional agencies/reentry programs to customize services to this population in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Mexico;
• Strategies for leveraging funding streams; and
• Contact points for potential partners at the state and local level. 

Click here to access the full report.

If you have any questions, would like to find out more about this topic, or to request a hard copy, contact Nicole Lindahl, Assistant Director of the Prisoner Reentry Institute, at
(646) 557-4534 or nlindahl@jjay.cuny.edu.

On Sunday, October 28, the Chicago Tribune featured the first article in a four-part series on Sweet Beginnings, LLC, a Chicago-based Social Enterprise owned by the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN). Through the manufacturing and sale of its beeline® brand of honey-based personal care products and all natural honey, Sweet Beginnings operates a Transitional Jobs program for individuals with criminal records. The series chronicles the journey of three program participants as they recover from addictions, learn the art of beekeeping, and seek employment.

In response to the series, Amy Rynell, Director of the Mid-America Institute on Poverty of Heartland Alliance, and Ellen Alberding, President of the Joyce Foundation, co-authored an op-ed to inform readers about the value of the TJ strategy and the effectiveness of the model for individuals with criminal records. Rynell and Alberding took advantage of this opportunity to discuss the larger systemic issues related to reentry and the need for comprehensive solutions.

Click here to read the Chicago Tribune series.

Click here to read the op-ed.

Op-eds are a great way to get your voice heard. Click here to read our October Newsletter spotlight on the “Power of an Op-ed.”

Skills2Compete Launch

November 12th marked the national launch of Skills2Compete, a non-partisan campaign working to guarantee that all of America's workers have access to up to 2 years of postsecondary education or training and the basic skills needed to get there. On the launch webinar, economists Harry Holzer and Robert Lerman discussed their research for the campaign, which reveals that the majority of the jobs in the U.S. require up to 2 years of postsecondary education or training. Despite this fact, America's education and training policies continue to focus primarily on access to 4-year degrees. Moving forward, the campaign and over 100 endorsers from across the country will promote a national discussion about a new guaranteed level of education reflecting public opinion that skills beyond high school are not a privilege, but a public good. 

Click here to read the new report, learn more about the campaign, become an endorser, and get involved.

In October, the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Learning Institute released a research report on the findings of its evaluation of CEO’s Young Adult Program. The report, titled, “CEO’s Young Adult Program: Engaging Formerly Incarcerated Young People in the Workforce,” discusses the program in the context of the nationwide crisis of disconnected youth. CEO offers immediate transitional employment to men and women coming home from prison while at the same time helping them find and then keep a permanent job. CEO’s Young Adult Program specifically engages high-risk 18 to 25 year olds coming home from prison with a specialized version of CEO’s comprehensive work program, providing extra support and coaching to help young people with little work experience and less maturity ease into the workplace.

The NTJN had an opportunity to interview Marta Nelson, Director of Policy and Planning at CEO, to discuss the report’s release and the overall importance of program evaluation.

NTJN Asked:  What did you hope to gain from the evaluation of your youth program?

CEO created its Young Adult program in 2005 with the support of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation to more effectively engage its youngest clients, keeping some longer in transitional employment and offering other programming to build skills for permanent jobs. Analyzing our program data, we discovered that early program dropout rate was significantly higher for youth than adults, and we wanted to address that. 

We evaluated the Young Adult program because we wanted to know (1) is the program working, and is the investment paying off, and (2) why is it working, i.e. what aspects of the program are driving its success? We also wanted to look more closely at the different characteristics of program participants in comparison to individuals not enrolled in the program to determine if there were any significant differences.

NTJN Asked:  What value does program evaluation add to CEO’s work?

It’s critical. We are a very data-oriented organization. We believe in learning about our work as we go. It is not worth it to invest time, staff resources, or funding in a program that doesn’t work. We run a variety of rigorous analyses that fit our needs. It’s very important. Organizations should not invest in something if it is not working. That said, you need to put your money were your mouth is; organizations need to spend the resources to develop some analytic and evaluative capacity if they want to know if their programs are working. It has been our experience that program staff like to have evaluations completed because the results provide validation for and input into the work they do every day.

We hold ourselves to rigorous standards for our evaluations. We look at the outcomes for program and non-program groups starting from enrollment into CEO, not after completion of the CEO program, or a component of it such as the Young Adult program. Many evaluations you see compare program completers to non-program completers. We believe good evaluations need to look at all participants who enter into a program, not just participants who complete the program. It is important to look at program impact even if individuals don’t complete the full curriculum to see if even a small dose had any effect.

NTJN Asked:   What was the evaluation process like? Were there any surprises or unexpected challenges? If so, how did you address those challenges?

The process was twofold; it had both qualitative and quantitative components. At two points in time, February 2006 and December 2006, research analysts embedded themselves in the Young Adult program. The analysts followed a group of participants from the initial assessment stage through their graduation from the program, and documented their observations. They also did interviews of staff and program participants. The quantitative component consisted of evaluating data from a sample of the participants within a specific time period, as well as a sample of non-program participants, analyzing participant characteristics, demographic information, the number of times they met with a job coach, the number of days they attended the program, etc. and running both outcome frequency and multivariate analyses about outcomes. 

The biggest surprise we discovered was that some young CEO participants did not get assessed to see if they were appropriate for the Young Adult program. Everyone age 18 to 25 after completing a four day introductory life skills class are supposed to return to CEO to get a special assessment to see if they need the specialized service of the program, but not everyone was attending the assessment. We addressed this finding by increasing our outreach to every young adult entering CEO to get them assessed to see if they needed the program.  

NTJN Asked:   What key personnel were involved? Were their any tensions between the managerial staff and the front line service providers?

With any kind of research, you have to embed yourself in the organization. It is important for the front line staff to know why you are there and what you are trying to do. If you listen and are respectful, people are willing to speak openly with you. For the most part, staff are open to research. Initial objections can be alleviated by respectful interaction. The research analysts are not there to critique the staff, but to find out what is working and what is not working. Your research should help the staff with their work.

NTJN Asked:   What differences, if any, are there in youth program evaluations compared to adult programs?

There is no real difference. Any time you ask people questions you want to be sensitive to who they are. You might have the same questions but ask them in a different way depending on if the individual is an adult or a youth. Any good qualitative interviewer is good at listening and people are responsive to that. It has been our experience that if you are able to invest in an analytic component, the program participants are willing to be involved in the evaluation process. People like to be heard. Since talking is not often an integral part of most programs, people appreciate having an opportunity for their voice to be heard.

NTJN Asked:   How have you used your evaluation results in the past, and how have they been received?

The CEO Learning Institute began in 2005. Our Young Adult and Rapid Rewards programs are the first two evaluations we’ve completed. We have received very positive feedback on both of the papers, especially about their tone. We don’t overstate our findings. We talk about why we did the evaluations, we talk about what the programs seek to accomplish, the different modalities of our program design, and what the results are. We try to place our evaluations in the context of what issues people in workforce development across the country are dealing with—disengaged youth, retention, etc.

NTJN Asked:   What are the next steps? What implications will the evaluation have on the program’s future operations?

We will keep running our Young Adult program and continue to evaluate it to figure out how the characteristics of participants in the program differ from those in the general population with the same demographics.

NTJN Asked:   What advice do you have for programs considering undertaking a rigorous evaluation? 

Do it, but to do it carefully. Program evaluations must be completed carefully and with enough rigor so that your findings stand up. If you are not able to hire your own research staff, as CEO has, graduate students or interns are a great available resource. CEO has partnered with research students from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to supplement the work of our in-house researchers. The standards of academia are excellent for program research and evaluation, and establishing a relationship with a professor can be a great resource for a nonprofit seeking to start program evaluations. 

Click here to read the report on CEO’s Young Adult Program.

Click here to read the NTJN’s recommended basic data collection elements for TJ programs.

For more information on CEO or program evaluation, visit the CEO website or contact:

Marta Nelson
Director of Policy and Planning
Center for Employment Opportunities
32 Broadway, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10004
212 422-4430, ext. 344
mnelson@ceoworks.org

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