Your noteworthy news and updates for July 2024 | |
Dear Subscriber,
The Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources envisions a world where sound, responsible policies and programs reduce poverty and advance human potential.
On July 1st after taking a walk in my neighborhood, I asked Alexa the temperature at 9:04pm only to hear her acknowledge my suspicion with a reply of “94 degrees.” When I moved to Austin in the mid-90s I distinctly remember seeing my grandmother in late June returning from the library with a large stack of books. “When it gets hot, you catch up on all those books you’ve wanted to read,” she told me. Since then, I’ve always felt as though July was a time to think, to reflect, and to catch up.
July 2024 marks the 10-year anniversary of Congress’ passing of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), providing an opportunity to reflect on the workforce development work of the Center. Federal allocations through WIOA, combined with state and locally generated investments, support the broad national, state, and local ecosystems of workforce education and training. Workforce development serves as a cornerstone of Ray Marshall Center’s work in identifying solutions to poverty and investigating improvements in individual’s lives through human investment. Our portfolio in workforce development analysis typically represents about half of the client-funded work the Center conducts.
Some current projects focusing on workforce development at the Center include the following:
• Evaluation of Workforce Development Services in Travis County
• Hire Local/Community Workforce Plan Evaluation for Workforce Solutions Capital Area
• Workforce Development Evaluation for the City of Austin
• Pursuit of Advanced Training in High-Demand Skills (PATHS) for Texas
• Evaluation of the Building Construction Trades (BCT) Grantees
• Project QUEST Evaluation
Our deep and broad experience in analyzing and evaluating workforce development programs (particularly within Texas) recently led to our selection to serve in Result’s for America’s State and Local Workforce Fellowship where we will continue to develop and support innovative approaches to advancing evidence-based workforce spending over the next seven months, providing opportunities to highlight our work to other communities across the country.
And looking at the backlog of news in this newsletter, I find myself glad of this opportunity to catch up this July and to highlight the terrific work of the Center and my colleagues. I particularly want to highlight the work of my colleagues Heath Prince and Thomas Boswell, for a project focusing on improving working conditions for sugar cane workers in Nicaragua to help prevent potentially fatal non-traditional origin chronic kidney disease brought upon by occupational heat stress. With temperatures soaring this summer and the prospect of consistently higher temperatures in future years, more and more Americans working outdoors will experience similar levels of heat stress. Just today (July 2nd) the U.S. Department of Labor released a proposed rule through Occupational Safety and Health Standards that would require employers (among other measures) to evaluate heat risks and then to provide drinking water, required rest breaks, and artificial shade. These are the same strategies effectively being deployed in Nicaragua, contributing to their evidence of effectiveness at preventing this debilitating disease for individuals and their families.
I hope you have enjoyed this July update and recent news. Stay safe in this heat. I can say with confidence that drinking lots of water, taking breaks, and spending time in the shade when outside all really help.
Until next time,
Greg B. Cumpton, PhD, Director
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RMC contributes to ENBEL policy brief on co-design in climate change and health research
The Ray Marshall Center’s work in Nicaragua (Protection, Resilience, Efficiency, and Prevention for workers in industrial agriculture in a changing climate [PREP]) has focused on measuring the differences in socioeconomic and resilience outcomes between households suffering from chronic kidney disease and those that are not, sampled from four communities that provide agricultural labor for a large local sugar mill. This work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, under the auspices of the Belmont Forum, an international partnership that mobilizes funding of environmental change research and accelerates its delivery to remove critical barriers to sustainability. PREP was one of several projects supported by a recent round of Belmont Forum grantmaking. The brief published by ENBEL (Enhancing Belmont Research Action to support EU policy making on climate change and health) provides an overview of each of this round’s grantees, summarizing collaborative activities and lessons learned from Climate, Environment, and Health (CEH) projects. Read more about the brief here.
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RMC's Cynthia Juniper interviewed for Texas Standard
RMC Research Associate Cynthia Juniper was interviewed recently by Texas Standard on pandemic-era staffing shortages in the childcare sector. “Compared to pre-pandemic levels, Texas’ childcare industry remains understaffed” aired October 17, 2022. Read more about the interview here.
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RMC’s Juniper and Boswell participate in City of Austin-UT Austin ILA Showcase and Workshop
RMC researchers Cynthia Juniper and Thomas Boswell participated in the City of Austin – UT Austin ILA Showcase and Workshop on September 13, 2023. The event highlighted successful collaborations between the two organizations under a Master Interlocal Agreement approved by Austin City Council in 2020 to streamline agreements between City departments who are looking for UT research expertise. Read more about the workshop here.
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RMC’s Thomas Boswell presents at AEA’s Evaluation 2023 with Nuru International
Ray Marshall Center’s Social Science Research Associate Thomas Boswell was part of a trio presenting findings from Nuru International‘s 2022 Nuru Nigeria Resilience Report at the American Evaluation Association‘s Evaluation 2023 conference in Indianapolis October 9-14, 2023. Boswell joined Nuru’s Ian Schwenke and Dena Bunnel of Kansas State University in the October 14th presentation. The report marks the end of a five-year evaluation conducted in partnership with the Center. Read more about the report here.
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Findings from RMC’s Jordan/MENA project led by Dr. Prince featured in Policy Press publication
RMC Research Scientist, Dr. Heath Prince, and former RMC Research Associate, Amna Khan (LBJ MPAff, 2012), along with Brandeis University colleague, Dr. Yara Halasa-Rappel, examined post-Arab Spring youth unemployment policies in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development in 2017. Their findings have now been published as a book chapter in the newly released University of Bristol’s Policy Press publication, Emerging Trends in Social Policy from the South: Challenges and Innovations in Emerging Economies (Yi, Kaasch, and Stetter, eds). Read more about their chapter and the book here.
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RMC’s Prince and Boswell present findings at CENCAM International Workshop
Ray Marshall Center’s Dr. Heath Prince and Thomas Boswell presented findings from their study titled “Prevention, Resilience, Efficiency, and Protection for workers in industrial agriculture in a changing climate (PREP): Baseline results from a household panel survey of the socioeconomic conditions experienced by agricultural workers in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua” at the Fourth International Workshop on Chronic Kidney Disease sponsored by Consortium for the Epidemic of Nephropathy in Central America and Mexico (CENCAM) and held February 13th-16th in Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. The workshop was developed as a collaboration between CENCAM, the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers of Health of Central America and the Dominican Republic (SE-COMISCA), the Latin American Society for Nephrology and Hypertension (SLANH), and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). Read more about their presentation and the workshop here.
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Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development: 2022 Update
In FY 2016–FY 2021, Travis County invested over $14 million through contracts with workforce development programs for low-income residents who face challenges in finding steady employment with sufficient earnings to support themselves and their families. These programs provide services ranging from Adult Basic Education (ABE), English as a Second Language (ESL) and high school equivalency certification (HSEC) programs, to short- and long-term skills training leading to certifications and/or associate degrees across a wide range of occupations. These occupations include nursing and other healthcare professions, information technology, skilled trades, manufacturing, and other occupations in area growth industries with good prospects for career advancement. Read more about the report here.
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Nuru Kenya 2022 Dairy Report
In 2008, Nuru Kenya (NK) set out to provide meaningful choices that empower communities to lift themselves out of poverty in a sustainable way. The integrated Nuru model seeks to address three key areas of need: 1) food insecurity, 2) inability to cope with economic shocks and 3) unnecessary disease and death. From inception, NK developed agriculture, financial inclusion and healthcare programs as solutions for these areas of need by using a co-creative program planning process. Programs have evolved over the years, and NK has been involved in an increasing number of programs and activities. This report reviews NK’s 2022 impact in the dairy sector, which represents a large portion of their overall programs across two counties, with data in Migori County stretching back to 2017, and new data becoming available this year in Homa Bay County, Kenya. Read more about the report here.
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Nuru Ethiopia 2022 Impact Report
In 2022, Nuru Ethiopia (NE) offered interventions in cooperative and rural livelihoods programming with 18,194 participant households in Gamo and Gofa Zones of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia. The intervention activities were punctuated by a shift in approach to supporting larger cooperative unions and cascading services to an increased number of primary cooperatives and farmers. Read more about the report here.
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PATHS for Texas: Interim Descriptive Statistics, Outcomes, Impacts, and Survey Results
The data presented in this brief represent individuals who participated in PATHS for Texas from its start date in 2020 through April of 2023. As of April 2023, 1,824 individuals registered to participate in the PATHS for Texas program from four Texas Workforce Development Boards across the state (Coastal Bend, Gulf Coast, Rural Capital Area, and North Texas). Of the 1,824 individuals who enrolled in PATHS, 1,221 (67%) individuals completed training and earned one or more certificates. Read more about the report here.
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Nuru Nigeria 2023 Endline Impact Report
This endline report shares the outcomes from the 4-year randomized control trial impact evaluation of Nuru Nigeria’s interventions, from 2019 to 2023 in northeastern Nigeria. Nuru Nigeria’s vision is to cultivate lasting, meaningful choices in the most vulnerable and marginalized communities in the world. By 2030, Nuru Nigeria intends to build resilient corridors of functioning locally-owned farmer cooperatives and profitable rural livelihoods in 12 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of northern Nigeria proximate to conflict-vulnerable areas. In implementing interventions, Nuru Nigeria aims to equip rural, vulnerable households to improve livelihoods and build resilience capacities to cope with conflict, environmental, economic, and social shocks and stressors for stability and prosperity within the program implementation period. This study focuses exclusively on Nuru Nigeria’s work in Adamawa State, the first LGA in which Nuru Nigeria began implementation. Read more about the report here.
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Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Plan for Nuru Nigeria
Nuru International’s mission is to eradicate extreme poverty in fragile rural areas to build communities resilient to violent extremism. Nuru International considers fragile states to continue to be a source of instability and relative deprivation in the world. Vulnerabilities in marginalized communities are ripe for exploitation by violent extremist groups and ideologies. Nuru International envisions a world in which all people live in an enabled environment with lasting, meaningful choices. Free of the burdens of vulnerabilities that threaten the stability and resilience of households and communities, people will be able to thrive and to exercise their agency. Read more about the report here.
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Nuru Kenya 2023 Dairy Impact Brief
Nuru Kenya (NK) was established in 2008 with the goal of enabling meaningful choices for vulnerable communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Their multifaceted approach addresses food insecurity, ability to cope with shocks, and addressing unnecessary disease and death. NK has since been engaged across the sectors of agriculture, financial inclusion, and healthcare. This report will focus on NK’s impact in the dairy sector as part of an integrated livelihood diversification strategy. This dairy program began in Migori county in 2017, and has since expanded to neighboring Homabay, the second county of operation for NK. This report focuses on the Migori county dairy program after 7 years of impact. Read more about the report here.
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Nuru Burkina Faso 2023 Impact Report
Nuru Burkina Faso (NBF) is a locally-led and locally-registered NGO in Burkina Faso. NBF’s mission is to build resilience corridors by eradicating poverty and unlocking economic potential within fragile communities in Burkina Faso to stop the spread of violent extremism by 2030. NBF was founded in 2022, and at the time of this report is in its second year of operation. Since its inception, NBF has created a capable and professional local organization that is engaged across several interventions. Read more about the report here.
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Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development 2023 Update
In FY 2016–FY 2022, Travis County invested over $16 million to support a continuum of adult education, training, and employment services. The adult education programing supported by the County includes English as a second language, basic adult education, high school equivalency and GED classes. Sectoral occupational training includes healthcare professions, information technology, skilled trades, manufacturing, and other occupations in area growth industries with good prospects for career advancement, improved economic stability, and access to employee benefits. Read more about the report here.
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Self-Sufficiency Wage Data Study
Pursuant to the Texas Workforce Commission’s (TWC) duties under Government Code, Chapter 2308A (enacted in House Bill 3767, 87th Legislature), the TWC has entered a partnership with the Ray Marshall Center to implement its duty to establish a self-sufficiency wage for each Texas county. Read more about the project here.
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Workforce Development Evaluation
The purpose of this study is to identify within the City of Austin funded workforce development training ecosystem, programmatic or strategic elements that impact participant outcomes. Research findings will be used to guide strategic planning for the City’s workforce development efforts. Read more about the project here.
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AT Home Evaluation
In coordination with Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO), the Ray Marshall Center will execute the planning and preparation needed to conduct the evaluation of the AT Home Initiative. Read more about the project here.
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