The Social Security Administration’s Youth Transition Demonstration Projects....

"In this report, we present first-year evaluation findings for the Career Transition Program (CTP), which served high school juniors and seniors, and youth who had recently exited school, in Montgomery County, Maryland. While it will take several more years before we fully observe the transitions that the participants in this study make to adult life, early data from the evaluation provide rich information on how CTP operated and the differences it made in key outcomes for youth. Specifically, the report includes findings from our process analysis of CTP, including a description of the program model, and documentation of how the program was implemented and services were delivered. The report also includes impact findings, based on data collected 12 months after youth entered the evaluation, on the use of services, paid employment, educational progress, income from earnings and benefits, and expectations for the future." (p. xv) (Abstractor: Author)

 Full Publication Title: The Social Security Administration’s Youth Transition Demonstration Projects: Interim Report on the Career Transition Program

• "At least 98 percent of participating youth received each of the following four types of services: employment-related, education-related, benefits planning, and case management….Work-based experiences, such as informational interviews and visits to job sites, were used both to refine those goals and as stepping stones to competitive paid employment. • Once a participant obtained competitive employment, often through the job development and placement efforts of CTP staff, the program provided employment supports, such as job coaching….76 of treatment group youth reported having used any employment-promoting service in the year following random assignment. CTP also increased participation in non-employment services, such as help getting into an education or training program, by 12 percentage points. • We found that 53 percent of treatment group youth worked for pay at some time during the year, but we estimated that this outcome would have been essentially the same in the absence of CTP. • In summary, although CTP increased the receipt of employment- promoting services, that did not translate into impacts on paid employment within the first year of program experience. • We estimated that 91 percent of the treatment group members either had completed high school by the time of the survey or been enrolled in school during the previous year, but that CTP was not a significant determinant of that percentage. • When we analyzed a more narrowly defined supplementary outcome, enrollment in a postsecondary education program during the year following random assignment, we found a positive impact of eight percentage points. In the domain of youth income, we found that CTP had no impact on the primary outcome: total youth income from earnings and SSA benefits (combined) during the year following random assignment. We also found no impacts on two supplementary outcomes in this domain: whether a youth received any SSA benefits during the year following random assignment and the total amount of benefits received during that year. • Finally, we found that CTP had no impact on the primary outcome in the domain of attitudes and expectations….82 percent of treatment group youth agreed that their personal goals included working and earning enough to stop receiving disability benefits." (p. xviii-xxi) (Abstractor: Author & Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2012
• Author(s): Fraker, Thomas; Baird, Peter; Mamun, Arif; Manno, Michelle; Martinez, John et al.
• Organizational Author(s): MDRC
• Funding Source: MDRC
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by:
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies