This research to practice brief illustrates the Washington State Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program. I-BEST incorporates adult basic education (ABE) and English as a Second Language (ESL) courses with technical training aligned with state career pathways. This program is considered a best practice model that has been studied and replicated elsewhere to accelerate learning of ESL students and help them achieve economic self-sufficiency.

This Jobs for the Future report reviews the core features of career pathway programs and findings of career pathway evaluations involving entry and access to the labor market for adults lacking basic reading, writing, and math skills, as well as the integration of these basic skills with industry-specific technical skills at the post-secondary education level. This report presents evidence of how this approach can lead to career progression with improved educational and economic opportunities for participants in the 16 career pathways programs studied.

This RAND Corporation brief reviews the New Orleans’ Career Pathways Training Program and its three stages for opportunities within the advanced manufacturing, health care, and information technology industries. The three stages under review include recruitment, training, and coordination with employers. The brief identifies some of the program’s successes and challenges in the implementation of the initiative and provides recommendations for lessons learned in applying the program to other communities.

This National Skills Coalition report identifies the role of non-degree credentials as a means to expand economic and educational opportunities for underserved workers. The report offers a proposed set of quality assurance systems for these non-degree credentials, developed in consultation with 12 states, so that policy makers can support these training programs with public resources. Students can enroll in high-quality programs, and employers can validate the connection between the credential and industry needs.

This National Skills Coalition blogpost summarizes the Coalition’s work on non-degree credentials and how to define quality non-degree credentials that are valid, reliable, and transparent. The blogpost also explores how states could support industry partnerships, expand apprenticeships and work-based learning, and increase financial aid and non-tuition supportive services for persons seeking non-degree credentials.

This U.S. Department of Labor’s Competency Model Clearinghouse offers three new resources to support career pathway development. They include How to Crosswalk Competency Models for Curriculum Development: A Video Series Concept, a set of videos that illustrate how community colleges and employers use competency models to develop curricula; Customizing Competency Models Through Convening Guide, a set of how-to-guides to create partnerships among regional workforce partners to develop customized competency models that are based on regional labor market needs; and U.S. DOL Competency Model Peer Learning Group, a workforce development practitioner learning series on how to use and find resources within the agency’s Competency Model Clearinghouse.

This Administration for Children and Families research-to-practice brief offers examples of employer engagement that have occurred under the HPOG program. The brief also outlines how these employer partnerships were designed and the outcomes that have resulted for HPOG participants.

This brief describes the strong collaborative culture among TANF and WIOA programs at the Larimer County Economic and Workforce Development (LCEWD) in Colorado. This American Job Center’s strategies to coordinate service delivery include targeted co-enrollments in TANF and WIOA, cross-program teams to organize work-based learning opportunities, and communication platforms to discuss shared customers. Leadership has also formalized collaboration with intentional hiring practices, management teams, and a shared mission.

Sections of the brief discuss joint service delivery, resource sharing, shared learning, and managing collaborative activities. Readers may also access links to the state TANF plan and funding information for more context and resources. This brief is part of the TANF Works! TANF/WIOA Collaboration Series, through which the Office of Family Assistance’s Integrating Innovative Employment and Economic Stability Strategies (IIEESS) initiative seeks to highlight innovative coordination strategies of TANF and WIOA programs to serve low-income or vulnerable populations.

This Lumina Foundation issue paper looks at how community colleges are moving towards emphasizing workforce education for underserved populations and ways that colleges build partnerships with employers. The issue paper also looks at the adoption of shorter, stackable credentials and the value of credentials in the labor market as workers enter and progress through career pathways.

This toolkit issued by Reimagine Retail Chicagoland provides useful information on designing and implementing career pathways in the retail industry. The toolkit offers sources for labor market information that can be used to develop the pathways and provides examples of “scripts” and language to use to create employer partnerships. There is also a section that evaluates how to use engaged employers’ feedback to create and strengthen sustainable workforce partnerships in the retail industry which can be applied to other industry sectors.