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• Child Welfare / Permanence
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Jobs Initiative

The Jobs Initiative was the Casey Foundation's eight-year effort in six cities to connect inner-city young men and women to family-supporting jobs in the regional economy and to improve the way urban labor market systems work for low-income, low-skilled workers.

Changing Systems Is Like Moving a Mountain: And Other Insights from Successful Workforce Leaders

This report offers insights and observations from successful leaders who have worked on system change, in answer to the philanthropic community’s need for more discussion and analysis of the traits, talents, and tactics that make good leaders, especially in workforce development. more >>

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Strengthening Workforce Policy: Applying the Lessons of the Jobs Initiative to Five Key Challenges

This report identifies five central problems that confront policymakers who are interested in improving workforce development programs. Based on lessons learned from the Jobs Initiative, an eight-year Casey Foundation workforce initiative launched in 1995, the report outlines specific policy actions to address these challenges. The report focuses on policy at the local, state, and federal levels. more >>

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Engaging Employers to Benefit Low-Income Job Seekers: Lessons Learned from the Jobs Initiative

Employers make choices that are key to the ability of low-income people to get and keep jobs and to advance in the workforce. Given the importance of the employer’s role regarding opportunities for low-wage, entry-level workers, there has been surprisingly little research into employers’ opinions and actions on this topic. This paper presents research on this topic using data collected from the Annie E. Casey’s Jobs Initiative. more >>

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A Work in Progress: Case Studies in Changing Local Workforce Development Systems - The Jobs Initiative Final Report Series, Volume 1

Using a case study format, this report examines the experience of several Jobs Initiative sites as they sought to foster change in the broader workforce development system in their regions more >>

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A Jobs Initiative Research Brief: Approaches to Measuring and Tracking Career Advancement

This brief focuses on the data side of career advancements by identifying issues, challenges, and methods for setting advancement targets, and collecting and reporting data associated with those targets. more >>

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A Work in Progress: Case Studies in Changing Local Workforce Development Systems - The Jobs Initiative Final Report Series--Volume 1

Volume 1 of the Jobs Initiative Final Reports examines the experience of trying to promote workforce development system improvement in four of the Jobs Initiative sites: Seattle, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. more >>

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Workforce Development for Working Families: A Solution in Search of Civic Commitment

This article by the Casey Foundation's Family Economic Success Initiative, describes how communities can create successful workforce initiatives based on lessons and findings from the Foundation's Jobs Initiative. more >>

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Good Jobs and Careers: What Communities Need to do to Train and Move Low-Income, Low-Skilled People into Good Jobs and Careers

This brochure wheel illustrates the 10 steps communities need to consider in creating a successful workforce initiative. more >>

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Jobs Initiative Research Conference: Recent Research and Results, Conference Highlights

This document provides highlights from the February 27-28, 2003 “Jobs Initiative Research Conference – Recent Research and Results.” It contains key findings from panel sessions on achieving economic self-sufficiency; the role of race, ethnicity, and cultural competence; employers’ roles in workforce development; local workforce politics; and approaches to continuing research and policy development. more >>

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Strengthening Florida's Workforce - Stengthening the Economy

This study uses a framework intended as a tool for assessing state efforts to assist working poor families. It was developed as a component of the New Cornerstone Chapter on Diversity-Economic Opportunities for Floridians. more >>

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Jobs-Plus Site-by-Site: Key Features of Mature Employment Programs

This report, a product of the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), draws cross-site lessons from Jobs-Plus about how residents engaged with the program, how the financial incentives were administered, and how community support for the program was developed. more >>

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Education Policy and The Jobs Initiative: Part Three

This paper is the third in a series of Jobs Initiative issue briefs. It looks at findings from the Jobs Initiative and the implications for public policy, including reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. more >>

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Workforce Development Policy and the AECF Jobs Initiative

This publication is second in a series of issue briefs on the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative and its implications for policy makers. more >>

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Breaking Through: Overcoming Barriers to Family-Sustaining Employment

This report examines barriers, interventions, and employment outcomes across Jobs Initiative sites based on an extensive participant database. Analysis focuses on the relationship between the many intervention strategies used by the Jobs Initiative sites and the outcomes achieved by participants. more >>

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Creating Change: Pushing Workforce Systems to Help Participants Achieve Economic Stability and Mobility

This report looks at some of the initial systems reform efforts by Jobs Initiative sites and what strategies seem to be working. It uses a case study approach to identify the most significant reform changes to date. For each case, the report describes the challenge facing the site, its strategy, and the impact of its work. more >>

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Using an Investment Approach to Grantmaking: Lessons learned from the Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative

A report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation looks at the Jobs Initiative and its lessons for funders of workforce development initiatives. It examines how ideas and practices associated with an “investment approach” influenced the work of the local sites teams and the Foundation. more >>

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Providing the Missing Link: A Model for a Neighborhood-Focused Employment Program

This report provides a model for implementing a neighborhood-focused workforce development strategy. With dual goals of increasing residents' employment and income, as well as increasing the quantity and quality of career opportunities, the strategy outlined in this document helps bridge the gap between low-income neighborhoods and regional workforce development programs. more >>

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Using An Investment Approach to Grantmaking: Executive Summary

This report looks at the Foundation's Jobs Inititiative and its lessons for funders of workforce development initiatives. more >>

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Moving Up Is a Steep Climb

This ethnographic study follows the lives and fortunes of 10 families who participated in the Casey Foundation’s Jobs Initiative programs in Milwaukee and Seattle. more >>

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On the Road: Car Ownership as an Asset-Building Strategy for Reducing Transportation-Related Barriers to Work

This is a report on car ownership as a strategy for helping people move into the labor market and helping low-wage workers gain access to better paying opportunities. It gives profiles and experiences of seven car-ownership programs, along with a bibliography of additional publications on transportation and poverty. more >>

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Taking the Initiative on Jobs and Race

This is a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation on the complex issue of race and regional labor markets, particularly for low-skilled workers. It includes lessons learned around issues of cultural competence and identifies helpful tools to improve the practice of workforce development for jobs seekers, workers, and employers alike. more >>

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Extending Ladders: Findings from the Annie E. Casey's Jobs Initiative

This document offers an insightful look at some of the employment outcomes and lessons of The Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative, which sought to improve the way urban labor markets work for low-income, inner-city residents. more >>

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The Employer's Voice: Frontline Workers and Workforce Advancement

Employers from the Jobs Initiatives sites in Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle, and St. Louis share their experiences around hiring low-wage workers. This includes the keynote address by former Congressman Steve Gunderson, who describes a skills-gap crisis between the skills that U.S. employers need to compete in the global economy and the skills possessed by America's workforce. more >>

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Workforce Development Management Information Systems

This report details important lessons learned using management information systems in workforce development programs based on experiences of the Jobs Initiative and non-Jobs Initiative workforce development organizations. more >>

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Systems Reform in the Jobs Initiative: Lessons from Using the Framework for Labor Market Systems Reform

In the sixth of a series of policy briefs related to retention and advancement for low-income residents, Pete Plastrik and Judy Taylor look at the systems-change framework being used by the Jobs Initiative and how it is working for the Jobs Initiative sites. more >>

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Employment Placement and Retention in the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative

The 2001 Annual Statistical Report of the Annie E. Casey's Jobs Initiative provides analysis of site-collected program data with a focus on issues pertaining to Jobs Initiative participants’ labor force retention patterns. This report focuses on employment barriers, training and placement services provided, and employee retention issues. more >>

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Results from the Jobs Initiative: Evaluation of the Capacity Building Phase

This is an evaluation of the initiative's capacity-building phase. The evaluation looks at how well Jobs Initiative sites have addressed the needs of very hard-to-serve populations and engaged employers. It identifies the characteristics of those served, placement and retention rates, gains in wages and benefits, and some of the critical factors in achieving these accomplishments. more >>

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The Human Services Workforce Initiative: The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Commitment

This document lays out the multi-year effort to address the critical condition of the workforce that serves America's most disadvantaged children and families. It highlights the urgent need to recruit and retain workers who have the appropriate training and support to deliver crucial and pivotal help in shaping the lives of vulnerable children, youth and families. more >>

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Evaluation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative-First Annual Report: Executive Summary

This is the executive summary of the report that examines the accomplishments and challenges of the planning phase across the six sites of the Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative, designed to improve access of disadvantaged young adults to family supporting employment. more >>

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Relative Strength: A Report on the Family's Place in Workforce Development Initiatives

This paper is a report on family centered employment strategies. It begins with a look at the economics of families in poverty and a brief outline of the many ways in which employment and training programs have begun to work with families. The report then examines the work of four employment programs now offering  services to families. more >>

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Stronger Links: New Ways to Connect Low-Skilled Workers to Better Jobs

This document highlights innovative programs that have emerged from a carefully planned, strategically funded, and thoughtfully implemented process to reform the labor market for low-income young adults in six cities. The stories and lessons presented are from the Jobs Initiative. more >>

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The Jobs Initiative and Welfare Policy

This report looks at results and lessons from the Jobs Initiative and the implications for federal welfare policy. The brief is the first in a series on the initiative and its implications for federal policymakers. more >>

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Creating Jobs: Public and Private Strategies for the Hard-to-Employ

This paper is intended to help Jobs Initiative sites and other communities learn more about creating new jobs and reaching those who are the hardest to employ, by describing both private and public job creation strategies that can be used to supplement private-sector job growth in their communities and to help disadvantaged inner-city residents enter into the labor market. more >>

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The Framework for Labor Market Systems Reform for Jobs Initiative Sites

This paper focuses on understanding the nature of the metropolitan or regional labor markets that sites in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Jobs Initiative have targeted for change. more >>

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Promoting Participation: How to Increase Involvement in Welfare-to-Work Activities

This guide shares lessons from the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation's welfare evaluations and field experience about welfare to work participation patterns, where participation is likely to fall off, and how to increase it.  Practical advice to policy makers and welfare-to-work program administrators is also offered. more >>

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Job Retention and Advancement Strategies for Low-Wage Young Adult Workers

This report provides a conceptual model of career advancement in low-wage sectors. It offers a listing of relevant techniques, approaches, and services organized by category; closing observations on the March 7, 1997 meeting; Jobs Initiative site priorities; and case studies of retention and advancement strategies in the hospitality and health industries. more >>

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Evaluation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative- First Annual Report

This report examines the accomplishments and challenges of the planning phase across the six sites of the Jobs Initiative, designed to improve access of disadvantaged young adults to family supporting employment opportunities. more >>

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MIS and Workforce Development

In the third of a series of Jobs Initiative policy research briefs, Susan Gewirtz of AECF and Robert Harrington of Metis Associates look at development efforts. more >>

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