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Summary

Career Builders provided team-based case management and career planning, job development, and education and training services to help Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients gain and maintain employment.

Career Builders began with two weeks of daily three-hour classes designed to help individuals understand why they had not succeeded previously in the labor market. In addition, to guide their job search, participants underwent extensive screening that identified barriers to employment and their strengths and interests. Participants were assigned a case manager, an employment specialist, a mental health specialist, and a community resource expert who worked together as a team to provide personal counseling and connect participants to peer support classes, training, and supportive services. Participants also developed a long-term career plan and were supposed to work with the employment specialist to deal with issues that arose with their new jobs; however, post-employment services had to be cut at the outset of Career Builders because of budget limitations.

The population the program served consisted of current TANF recipients who had previously received TANF or had lost a job within the last two years, as well as new TANF applicants who did not find work within 45 days of applying for TANF. Career Builders was implemented in Portland, OR. It was evaluated as part of the Employment Retention and Advancement Evaluation.

3138-Portland, OR, Employ
Populations and employment barriers: Cash assistance recipients, Parents, Single parents

Effectiveness rating and effect by outcome domain

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Outcome domain Term Effectiveness rating Effect in 2018 dollars and percentages Effect in standard deviations Sample size
Increase earnings Short-term Little evidence to assess support unfavorable $-21 per year -0.001 634
Long-term Little evidence to assess support favorable $439 per year 0.021 634
Very long-term No evidence to assess support
Increase employment Short-term Little evidence to assess support unfavorable -3% (in percentage points) -0.081 634
Long-term Little evidence to assess support unfavorable -2% (in percentage points) -0.059 634
Very long-term No evidence to assess support
Decrease benefit receipt Short-term Little evidence to assess support unfavorable $41 per year 0.015 634
Long-term Little evidence to assess support unfavorable $50 per year 0.018 634
Very long-term No evidence to assess support
Increase education and training All measurement periods No evidence to assess support
* This intervention was assessed as supported for this domain, meaning it achieved one or more statistically significant, favorable effects. However, the intervention has an average effect size that is unfavorable because the average includes all effects in this domain - both statistically significant and favorable effects and statistically insignificant but unfavorable effects.

Effectiveness rating key:

  • Well-supported Well-supported   
  • Supported  Supported   
  • Not supported  Not supported   
  • Mixed support  Mixed support   
  • Insufficient evidence  Insufficient evidence   
  • No evidence  No evidence
Effectiveness rating terms?

Studies of this intervention

Study quality rating Study counts per rating
High High 1
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Implementation details

Characteristics of research participants
Black or African American
39%
White, not Hispanic
43%
Another race
11%
Hispanic or Latino of any race
7%

The race and ethnicity categories may sum to more than 100 percent if the authors reported race and ethnicity separately; in these cases, we report the category White, rather than White, not Hispanic.

State(s) where implemented

AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE DC FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY Canada

The Pathways Clearinghouse refers to interventions by the names used in study reports or manuscripts. Some intervention names may use language that is not consistent with our style guide, preferences, or the terminology we use to describe populations.

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