A crucial key to preventing and ending poverty is the system of education and training for employment. The 104th Congress is considering several proposals to reform vocational education, employment training, and welfare. The most sweeping would consolidate all employment training programs and vocational education into a single block grant to each…

This report contains profiles of eight states (Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont) that describe the states' efforts to include youth with disabilities in School-to-Work efforts. Data were gathered on each of the states through written records of state resources and grants, web site information,…

This report explores promising welfare-to-work programs and practices of states and localities as they balance supply- with demand-side strategies to help welfare recipients and low-wage workers work their way out of poverty while meeting employers' needs for reliable workers. Chapter 2 describes the new environment created by changes in the…

A review of Florida's work force development (WD) system focuses on state-level entities and programs involved in providing job training services, workforce education services, and other services to help persons obtain and retain jobs. State-level WD entities consist of 10 state agencies and public-private partnerships, 2 primary state-level…

This report describes the Jobs-Plus approach, an attempt to transform low-work, high-welfare public housing developments into high-work, low-welfare communities. It highlights the rationale of the approach, the way the demonstration has been set up to test the approach in the field, and what has been accomplished so far by the seven cities chosen…

This report details the outcomes of a study conducted in response to concerns about the impact of workforce development and welfare reform upon persons with disabilities being served by community rehabilitation programs. Twenty-three focus groups involving over 200 individuals were held in 13 different cities across eight states. Participants came…

This paper poses a question of direct relevance for welfare administrators, program operators, and policy makers: What management practices, program strategies, and local conditions are key to running effective welfare-to-work programs? To address this question, the present analysis links detailed measures of program characteristics to valid and…

This practitioner's guide to helping employment program clients find, retain, and advance in jobs is based on the experiences of Moving Up, an employment program operated by New York's Vocational Foundation, Inc. (VFI). The guide begins with an overview of Moving Up, which has become a national model for helping disadvantaged minority youths…

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (the Act), provides the legislative basis for programs and activities that assist individuals with disabilities in the pursuit of gainful employment, independence, self-sufficiency and full integration into community life. This report is intended to provide a description of accomplishments and progress…

This report profiles three workforce organizations across the country--in Colorado, Georgia and New York--and explores the strategies they used to grow their programs locally. The report examines the dilemmas workforce organizations frequently face in meeting not only the needs of their dual customers--job seekers and employers--but also the needs…

This guide provides information on funding resources for supported employment in Montana. Supported employment provides individuals with severe disabilities the tools necessary to enter into an integrated work setting at a competitive wage. Supported employment generally consists of the professional expertise of a job coach, job development…

This study examined the relationship between years of teaching experience and teacher specialty area in terms of formulation of vocational objectives in transition planning. Descriptive and inferential data were gathered from 43 secondary special education teachers concerning 393 student transition plans. Results indicated that teaching experience…

This report describes the role of a mentor of young people and a summer program providing mentors for high school students. For two summers, with the help of the Commonwealth Fund, several hundred young New Yorkers were chosen from among high school juniors with little hope of finding a summer job to enroll in a program sponsored by Hunter College…

This document summarizes annual reports of two organizations providing specialized education, training, and work experience to targeted youth who have not been effectively served by the current education system in Minnesota. The City, Inc., in Minneapolis, and the Bi-County Community Action Council, Inc. (BI-CAP) in Bemidji, provided programs for…

This report presents the results of the first year of a 5-year project designed to investigate the impact of child care training programs on the employability of low-income women and assess the impact of such training on these women's parenting skills. The first year of the project was spent reviewing the literature. This report of the project and…