Baseline evaluation of National Fund for Workforce Solutions
Submitted by tcoxen on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 8:53am
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A recently released baseline evaluation report on the National Fund for Workforce Solutions offers helpful insights on the impact sector strategies can have on low-income, low-skilled workers and also highlights some of the opportunities and challenges that face the national initiative that is working to build workforce partnerships rooted in industry sectors and improve labor market outcomes for both low-income individuals and employers using three approaches: sector initiatives, career pathways programs and workforce intermediaries.
As members of the Fund, local workforce collaboratives around the country are looking to add 100 or more workforce partnerships to the 37 workforce partnerships providing services today. These partnerships have served 6,306 individuals and 504 employers to-date, versus the initiative’s five-year goal of supporting 50,000 low-income workers and 1,000 employers improve their economic futures. The report notes that increasing the number of partnerships will require more intensive technical assistance, as local partners may lack knowledge or experience in implementing career advancement strategies and will likely need assistance in building the capacity to implement local solutions.
The efforts of the new and existing partnerships are helping to inform how essential elements of the Fund’s theory of change play out locally. These elements include using workforce intermediaries to coordinate efforts among partners, serving low-income and low-skilled adults with sector-based services, engaging employers in program design and implementation, working with public sector partners, and using these partnerships to improve access to and success in longer-term occupational training that prepares workers to meet employer needs for the higher-skilled workers and ensures these workers’ economic competitiveness.
The full report can be found here.
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