Inside the Black Box - Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

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Funding Part of the continued success of workforce organizations facing tough economic circumstances may be attributed to their ability to continue securing and establishing sufficient funding, which provides the resources needed to produce, collect, and report successful outcomes to funders. These outcomes, along with an organization’s established reputation with a variety of funders, help programs secure diverse and stable funding. The organizations that participated in this study also provided a great deal of insight regarding the limitations and flexibility of funding. Funding requirements focus on the deliverables and steps programs must take to achieve traditional outcomes. Agencies align their services and practices with varying outcome measures, which can differ among funding sources. Funding must be flexible enough to provide support for services beyond immediate job skills training in order for programs and participants to succeed. Organizations also described the challenges of funding silos that are encouraged at the federal level – the funding that focuses on single types of program models or program participants. However, these silos conflict with the comprehensive mission and services of many organizations. As a result, diversifying funding becomes critical. Agencies and policymakers involved in workforce development need to have a more system-wide, collaborative view of their work in order to ease the burden on providers while improving the outcomes of participants. By working together across silos, policymakers, administrators, and researchers can better see areas where organizations need more support and align policies in ways that contribute to successful employment outcomes regardless of funding silos. Partnerships and External Engagement Strong employer relationships allow programs to achieve successful job placement outcomes. Programs engage employers in a variety of ways, including through employer volunteerism and by providing business services. These efforts ultimately serve the goal of building strong relationships with employers, keeping them engaged over time, and finding job placements for program participants, including those harder to serve. Dedicated staff and a dual-client mentality (participant and employer) strengthen the employer partnerships among the organizations in this study. To improve the quality of the job matches, liaisons from the training programs can work hand-in-hand with an employer liaison. Having this established relationship and consistent interaction help to increase graduates’ employment placement and retention. A continuous open dialogue facilitates the job match process from enrollment through graduation, leading to better employment outcomes. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 68
Community engagement is also essential for program success, since community needs shape the services offered by programs, determine where programs may be located, and serve as a source of referrals. Programs also strive to promote economic development for the individuals and businesses they serve, as well as the overall community. Considering community factors when developing or expanding a training program is essential to its success. With the many influential factors on workforce development program success, improving measures around these factors and developing an integrated data system for their measurement will strengthen the entire workforce development system. By collecting more comprehensive yet meaningful data in an integrated data management information system, programs will have the information needed to assess their efforts and make improvements to achieve their goals. Ultimately better measures will help lead to better programs and improved employment outcomes for the participants they serve. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 69
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Inside the Black Box: What Makes Wo
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Acknowledgments We would like to th
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Policy and Advocacy Efforts .......
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Executive Summary The workforce dev
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1. Interface with other required da
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While acknowledging funding as a pr
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Introduction The workforce developm
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Figure 1: Interaction of Influences
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Review of Recent Literature A revie
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development system and found that i
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for contributing to program success
Page 23 and 24: capture all of the participants’
Page 25 and 26: The organizations also reported tha
Page 27 and 28: that needs to be collected. Another
Page 29 and 30: Recommendation 2: Develop longitudi
Page 31 and 32: seldom systematically collected by
Page 33 and 34: With regard to the planning and dev
Page 35 and 36: models in order to best serve their
Page 37 and 38: organizations are interested in col
Page 39 and 40: Poor attitude, poor work history, o
Page 41 and 42: Organizations often use a wide rang
Page 43 and 44: …a more holistic approach to work
Page 45 and 46: in the industry. Professional crede
Page 47 and 48: Success Factors: Workforce Provider
Page 49 and 50: education or no work experience. Ot
Page 51 and 52: equirements. As part of these effor
Page 53 and 54: given as the reason organizations d
Page 55 and 56: passion to see, to transform this c
Page 57 and 58: permanent job opportunities. These
Page 59 and 60: Meet the Needs of Participants Many
Page 61 and 62: participant is linked to an opening
Page 63 and 64: Provide Business Services to Engage
Page 65 and 66: The organizations in the study all
Page 67 and 68: community, such as the services the
Page 69 and 70: depend more heavily on other fundin
Page 71 and 72: Sometimes a legislation that is out
Page 73: on the participants they serve. Als
Page 77 and 78: Website Description Length of Progr
Page 79 and 80: Eligibility Participants Served Par
Page 81 and 82: Participants Served ninth grade lev
Page 83 and 84: Length of Program Size of Program E
Page 85 and 86: Size of Program Eligibility Partici
Page 87 and 88: Eligibility Participants Served Ind
Page 89 and 90: Bragg, D.D., Kim, E., & Barnett, E.
Page 91 and 92: Herr, T., & Wagner, S. L. (2007). B
Page 93 and 94: NGA Center for Best Practices, Nati
Page 95 and 96: The Workforce Boards of Metropolita
Page 97 and 98: The qualitative design of this proj
Page 99: 1313 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 6
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Inside the Black Box - Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

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