Workforce Development

Chris King keynotes CareerAdvance® 2019 graduation ceremony

September 24, 2019 Leave a Comment

RMC Senior Research Scientist Dr. Chris King was the keynote speaker at CareerAdvance®‘s 2019 graduation ceremony held at the Tulsa Technology Center on September 9th. Chris was an instrumental member of the team that designed CareerAdvance®, a sectoral, career pathway workforce strategy for the parents of children served by Tulsa’s early childhood education programs in 2009 and is part of the team conducting the evaluation of the program for CAP Tulsa via funding from the US Depart of Health and Human Services. Janae Bradford, Assistant Director of Family Advancement for CAP Tulsa, emceed the event.

This year, 108 graduates walked the stage to be awarded certifications in 12 different career tracks. Certifications included seven Development Associates (CDA), seventeen Nursing Assistants (CNA), twelve Medication Aides (CMA), two Advance Mediation Aids (Advanced CMA), three Advanced Unlicensed Assistants, five Central Services Technicians (CST), ten Electrocardiogram Monitor Technicians (EKG Technician), twenty Phlebotomy graduates, twenty Medical Assistants, three Surgical Technologists, seven Medical Coders, and two Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN).

Since 2008, the Ray Marshall Center has had an ongoing partnership with CAP Tulsa and Northwestern University (as well as partners at NYU and Columbia) to evaluate CareerAdvance®. You can view the details of the partnership here.

Photos courtesy of Madison Strategies Group.

Dr. Chris King speaks at CareerAdvance 2019 graduation

L-R: Erika Saldivar, Rachel Lhungdim, Amber Lipp and Patrena Jeffers

L-R: Ashley Garza, Juana Hess, Madison Beasley, Jamese Brown; Top row L-R: Violet Houston and Hollee Whitehead; Bottom left: Quiara Scott

L-R: Toniesha Cotton, Brooke Mcknight, Brittany Newton

Evaluation of the Upskill ATX Pilot Program

September 20, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Greg Cumpton, PhD
Sponsor:	Workforce Solutions Capital Area
Project Duration:	July 2019 – July 2021
Description:	The Ray Marshall Center will assist the Central Texas Healthcare Partnership (CTHP) by conducting an evaluation of the Upskill ATX Pilot Project. Specifically, this evaluation will provide: 1) A quantitative assessment of the outcomes of each pilot; as well as 2) A qualitative analysis of those factors that contributed to and/or inhibited specific outcomes, in order to document lessons learned and inform future workforce development investments. In addition, the evaluation will provide recommendations around options to strengthen and scale Central Texas efforts to upskill incumbent workers.
Reports Available:

Investing in America’s Workforce Free Webinar on Thursday July 25, 2019

July 22, 2019 Leave a Comment

Please join us for a free webinar Investing in America’s Workforce: Investing in Systems for Employment Opportunity on July 25, 2019. The one-hour event is sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and begins at 3pm EST. Register here today!

Details:
Many workforce development programs and policies have made strides in improving economic opportunities for workers and their employers. However, these initiatives are often small, local in scope and have limited ability to scale to meet the needs in the broader labor force. This webinar will discuss several innovations and frameworks that can provide insight into how to build on these successes through innovations in financing mechanisms, data use, and information processes. In this webinar, two authors will discuss highlights from their contributions to Volume 3 of Investing in America’s Workforce: Improving Outcomes for Workers and Employers. The goal of this publication is to reframe workforce development efforts as investments that provide returns to workers, businesses, and communities as a whole.

Presenters include:

Miguel Palacios, from University of Calgary, will discuss obstacles and opportunities for financing human capital development based on his chapter “Financing Human Capital through Income-Contingent Agreements.”
Rachel Zinn, from the City of Baltimore, will draw on her chapter “All Data Big and Small: Using Information to Guide Workforce Development” to explore examples of data being used to improve human capital development policy and practice.
Steve Wandner, from W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, will present examples of how workforce agencies can integrate data into decision-making processes based on his chapter “Research and Evidence-Building Capacity of State Workforce Agencies.”
Heath Prince, from Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, will moderate.

More about the Investing in America’s Workforce Initiative:
Investing in America’s Workforce is a publication of the Federal Reserve System, the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Download a copy of the book today, explore additional related resources, and join the conversation on Twitter at #InvestInWork.

ASPIRE Program Impact Evaluation Services

March 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Heath J. Prince PhD
Sponsor(s):	Decision Information Resources, Inc via BakerRipley
Project Duration:	January 2019 – June 2020
Description:	BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers, Inc.) launched ASPIRE in early 2016 as a workforce development program designed to support underemployed workers in the Houston, Texas area to successfully move from low-wage jobs to living-wage, middle-skill jobs that provide financial stability and contribute to the region’s economic growth. Decision Information Resources, Inc. (DIR) is a Houston-based minority-owned research and evaluation firm that has been involved in evaluating workforce development programs over the full course of its 34-year history. An impact evaluation of ASPIRE will focus on comparing outcomes for program participants with program non-participants in order to measure the effectiveness of program participation. BakerRipley indicates that the impact evaluation seeks to answer the broad research question: Are ASPIRE candidates’ lives better off? And if so, by how much? The specific questions to be addressed by this impact evaluation per the ASPIRE Evaluation Plan are: What are the effects of program participation on ASPIRE client outcomes? How do effects vary for different client populations? How does participation in specific service delivery types affect client outcomes? What are the causal mechanisms? (What explains the links between program participation and outcomes?)
Reports Available:

Building a Workforce Data Blueprint

March 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Heath J. Prince PhD
Sponsor(s):	Michael and Susan Dell Foundation
Project Duration:	January 2019 – September 2019
Description:	The Ray Marshall Center will provide research support to the WinDDOWS project, funded by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and implemented by the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. The goal of the WinDDOWS project is to develop a workforce data infrastructure implementation blueprint.
Reports Available:

Evaluation of the Upskill ATX Pilot Program

Investing in America’s Workforce Free Webinar on Thursday July 25, 2019

ASPIRE Program Impact Evaluation Services

Building a Workforce Data Blueprint

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