Empowering Lives through Education, Vocational Assessment, Training, and Employment (ELEVATE) provided individualized case management, employment, parenting, and child support services to noncustodial parents who were unemployed or underemployed to improve their workforce participation and child support compliance. Services included individualized assessments for employment, parenting, and other needs and case management to provide monitoring and referrals to additional services as needed.

The CSPED provided noncustodial parents with case management, employment services, enhanced child support services, parenting classes, and domestic violence services. Each participant was assigned a case manager to assess needs and monitor progress. Employment services included job search assistance; job-readiness training; and assistance with job placement, job retention, and rapid reemployment following job loss. Participating sites were also encouraged, though not required, to provide job skills training, vocational training, education related to employment, and supportive services.

The Office of the Attorney General partnered with the Texas Workforce Commission and Title IV-D court (part of the state child support enforcement system) to administer the program with the goal of helping parents become more responsible parents and preventing them from falling behind on child support payments. Noncustodial parents were offered eight weekly, two-hour group workshops covering financial responsibility, parenting and co-parenting skills, and financial education.

PSI participants attended a job-readiness course, called Learning Expectations and Developing Employment Readiness Skills (LEADERS), course for two weeks. In addition to providing information about the program services and its expectations, LEADERS included conflict resolution, work readiness, mock interviews, and help preparing resumes. LEADERS was intended to prepare participants for the National Work Readiness assessment, which they took at the end of the course to be placed on a work crew.

The TransitionsSF program, which took place in San Francisco, CA, served unemployed and underemployed noncustodial parents. TransitionsSF included three stages. The first stage, which typically lasted three months, was a pre-transitional job period, during which participants took assessments to determine whether they required substance abuse services, mental health services, or other services. This stage also included individualized job-readiness training that helped participants develop their soft skills.

SFTW started with a three- to five-day job-readiness workshop, during which participants took assessments and engaged in job-readiness activities. Participants were then assigned a case manager, who helped participants become more job ready; develop soft skills; and address barriers to work, such as a lack of clothing, transportation, or housing. Case managers also served as job coaches and helped match participants to transitional jobs based on their skills and interests, mostly with private-sector employers.

After two days of initial skills assessment, Good Transitions participants were placed in a subsidized job at Goodwill Industries stores. An on-site job coach provided feedback and support while program staff provided case management and job development services. After one month at the Goodwill position, Good Transitions placed participants in a new position, with less on-site support and coaching than the Goodwill position, for about three months.