Enhanced services for the YPD Plus Mentoring participants varied across sites but often included several hours of one-on-one mentoring services, individualized mentee support, or group workshops, in addition to YPD services. The duration of services varied by site. One site offered 2 to 12 weeks of work readiness classes followed by employment assistance, while another offered a 15-month weekly peer group workshops focusing on educational attainment, technological skills development, workforce readiness, and career exploration.

Between 1994 and 1998, MTO offered housing vouchers to families with low incomes who lived in public housing or private assisted housing projects in high-poverty neighborhoods and who had at least one child younger than 18. Private assisted housing projects are rental housing built by private owners through federal programs that required them to price some units to be affordable to people with low incomes. The vouchers subsidized the cost of renting new housing in neighborhoods of their choosing.

To continue to receive benefits, TANF participants were required to engage in employment-related activities for 32 hours per week. Program staff allowed TANF participants in the Training Focused intervention to decrease work hours per week to zero hours to pursue education and training activities, with the philosophy that eliminating the requirement to engage in work would allow participants to access the most useful education and training programs.

CareerAdvance participants enrolled in one of three programs linked to a health care career (nursing, health information technology, or medical assisting). Participants also received funding for tuition, books and supplies, additional child care assistance (if child care needs could not be met through the Head Start program alone), coaching, and financial incentives for meeting program milestones. Peer support groups were also available.

Traditional Case Management participants worked with one case manager to improve educational and vocational skills and with a separate income maintenance case manager to determine their welfare eligibility and payment issuance. Participants who did not have a high school diploma or GED were assigned to basic education classes; participants with basic education credentials were assigned to vocational training, postsecondary education, or work experience.

The HCD program implemented in Riverside, CA, emphasized that participants should spend time receiving education or training to prepare for good jobs. If participants did not have a high school diploma or general education diploma, the program provided basic education classes in the public school system to help participants make progress toward their goals (such as increasing their literacy level). Case managers were accountable for the employment and education outcomes of their clients and therefore encouraged success and emphasized and enforced program participation.

At the time this evaluation occurred, two Transitional Subsidized Employment programs were active in Los Angeles County: OJT and a paid work experience (PWE) program. OJT placed participants in a partially subsidized, six-month position at a for-profit, private-sector organization, where they were paid $8 an hour by the local Workforce Investment Board (WIB) for the first two months.