Evaluation of Bridges to Career Opportunities: Final Report

This report, a Level 1 resource, is the final evaluation report on the effectiveness of the BCO model, which builds on the earlier Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) strategy by providing clients with instruction in basic skills using curricula tailored to occupations in each region’s growth industries, in achieving its intended outcomes for underemployed and unemployed adults.

The BCO model has four program components:

• A contextualized bridge program to increase clients’ basic skills within an academic and career pathway in a specific growth sector or industry (e.g., healthcare).
• Financial coaching and education, including solving financial problems, planning for financial stability, connecting to financial institutions and services, and accessing financial products to build savings and credit.
• Income support services to help clients access public benefits for which they are eligible that can enable them to participate in and complete training.
• Employment services to provide job readiness training, job search, and job placement.

The evaluation consisted of an implementation study and a quasi-experimental impact study. The implementation study assessed the extent to which a purposeful sample of seven BCO treatment group sites carried out the services that compose the BCO model and the factors that facilitated and posed challenges to delivering BCO services. The quasi-experimental impact study investigated the effects of BCO services in those seven sites on participants’ employment and financial well-being outcomes compared to those of a comparison group of similar clients who enrolled in FOC-only services in six comparison sites.

The BCO implementation study addressed to what extent did the study sites implement the following four components of the BCO program with fidelity: (1) contextualized bridge program services, (2) financial coaching and education services, (3) income supports, and (4) employment services?

The impact study examined whether the BCO model, which integrates bridge services with FOC services, better prepares low-income participants to increase their employment prospects and financial stability than FOC services alone. The study addressed research questions on employment and financial well-being using a quasi-experimental design and compared the outcomes of BCO participants (the treatment group) with a matched group of FOC participants (the comparison group).

(This report is 90 pages long)

(This study took place in 2017/18)

The researchers identified the following findings:

• The evaluation found that the BCO model, with well-defined services, training, and technical assistance support, can be implemented by community-based organizations with strong adherence to the model. The evaluation also indicated that BCO’s goal to facilitate clients’ attainment of educational credentials and employment on their path to economic well-being could be attained through the delivery of the multi-component services that define the BCO model.
• The seven treatment sites implemented the BCO model’s four components of activities with a high degree of fidelity.
• The majority of BCO treatment participants completed the BCO program (86 percent), and most of those completers earned at least one credential, primarily an occupational certificate (80 percent).
• The evaluation results indicated that BCO treatment participants were significantly more likely to obtain or advance in a job after enrollment than FOC comparison participants. Factors contributing to this outcome were the comprehensive job readiness and job placement services that the BCO sites provided.
• The evaluation found that FOC comparison group participants were more likely to increase their credit scores than BCO treatment group participants. Comparison group participants were also more likely than treatment participants to decrease their debt, increase their net worth, and have a higher debt decrease.

The researchers proposed the following recommendation:

• One lesson from the evaluation concerns processes to mitigate the loss of administrative data. Although the researchers encouraged sites throughout the evaluation to follow established protocols for entering client data, more frequent monitoring of the BCO and FOC data might have resulted in less data loss.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2021
• Author(s): Alamprese, J. A., Parsad, A., Shea, M., & Cheng, I.; Hamadyk, J.
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies