Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) help connect youth to opportunities for career exploration, skill development, and mentorship. Despite heightened investment in SYEPs, research regarding positive impacts is limited. Most of the common SYEP evaluation strategies are rooted in deficit thinking and focus on outcomes such as reducing violent…

Growing evidence suggests that Positive Youth Development (PYD), a holistic approach to developing assets and competencies, can help prepare young people for success in adulthood, including success in the workplace. At its core, PYD focuses on creating a supportive, developmentally appropriate learning setting by emphasizing positive…

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…

This paper reports on the results of an online survey that asked Manitoba employers about the employment of older workers. The survey attempted to gain insight into benefits of and challenges to engaging older workers; strategies to recruit, retain, and engage older workers; and the role of education and training for older workers. This research…

"Jobs Rally" is a community event that can be coordinated by a human service program or institution to help communities become more responsive to the independent living and career development needs of people with severe disabilities. This manual outlines how to conduct a jobs rally. The manual begins with a very brief four-step community…

This manual is the employer-focused component workbook of a vocational rehabilitation program. Goals of the RehabMark approach include increased exposure of the rehabilitation agency in the local community, expanded contributions by the agency to community members, and services benefiting numerous clients simultaneously. The first half of the…

Between July 1981 and November 1982, the United States experienced the worst economic recession of the post-World War II period. In response, Congress in March 1983 enacted the Emergency Jobs Appropriations Act, whose objectives were: (1) to provide productive employment for jobless Americans; (2) to hasten or initiate federal projects and…

The Single Teen Parent Program conducted by the Orange County, Florida, Public Schools, was designed to help single teen parents acquire marketable skills and jobs in order to head independent family units. The parents served were between the ages of 16 and 20 and either had a high school diploma or had passed the General Educational Development…

The majority of employment and training programs are designed as one-size-fits-all, leaving approximately 85 percent of participants unsatisfied, unmotivated, or forced back into a job with no chance of advancement. In targeting a clientele of single parents and dislocated workers, an action research project, called Chance to Advance, conducted in…

This final report presents conclusions of a study of culturally appropriate employment goals in individual written rehabilitation plans (IWRPs) for American Indians with disabilities. It focuses on goals other than competitive employment and reviews national statistics on work status at closure from all state agencies and 18 tribal VR (vocational…

This databook for the final report of the 10-year plan to redevelop services for individuals with intellectual disabilities in Victoria, Australia, presents results of three studies. The major study provides a functional profile of people with intellectual disabilities living in State-run institutions (Residential Training Centres) or attending…

A project was undertaken in Humboldt County to collect information from large and small businesses in the areas of agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transportation, wholesale and retail, finance, services, and public information with respect to their employee requirements and needs. In all, 451 firms were surveyed to determine the size of the…

In 1989, a national survey sponsored by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education was conducted of a random sample of 246 public community, technical, and junior colleges to ascertain the extent of the colleges' economic development activities outside of the regular curriculum, such as customized training, short-term vocational…

The WorkAbility Program was a 3-year project initiated in October 1991 by the Metropolitan Community Colleges (MCC) in Kansas City, Missouri, to increase the employability of students with disabilities by addressing needs for career counseling, mentoring, job search skills preparation, and career-related work experiences. The five sections of this…

In 1989-90, a survey was conducted of two-year colleges nationwide to determine their level of involvement in the delivery of employment, training, and literacy services to public sector agencies and business and industry. The study focused particularly on those services funded under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), the Job Opportunities…