Narrative: III. b. 4. D.

D. Evaluation

The Illinois Workforce Innovation Board’s (IWIB) Continuous Improvement Committee (CIC) leads the process to determine appropriate actions and recommendations to the IWIB regarding the design of evaluation and research projects across all four partners and one-stop required partners as opportunities arise. The CIC reviews performance measures to identify strategies that are effective in allowing local boards to meet their performance targets. Similarly, they will look at key factors that might present challenges to those boards that prevent them from meeting their goals. From this information, they identify and make recommendations regarding strategies that all boards should consider as methods for continuous improvement. The CIC is reviewing all policies and processes to determine their relationship to positive outcomes, as well as to determine if outcome results conformed to the intended goals. They will develop recommendations based upon their findings. Recommendations could be incorporated within new or revised policies, provided in informal guidance, and considered for inclusion in professional development and technical assistance opportunities.

The CIC’s Evaluation Work Group developed an Evaluation Toolkit in 2021 using an equity lens that is available for program use. Under the guidance of the CIC, the Evaluation Work Group  continues to meet on a regular basis to ensure the toolkit remains relevant and reflects WIOA priorities and best practices for evaluation. Current policies that provide immediate opportunities to assess results are the minimum training expenditure requirement, the one-stop center certification, and the service integration self-assessment. This new information and best practices learned from the cohort project was incorporated within the CIC evaluation process in 2020 and will be applied to these policies and others identified through future discussions.

Other examples of how the state is conducting or plans to conduct evaluations and research projects include:

• The Reemployment Service and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) program is administered by the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) and is intended to address individual employment needs for unemployment insurance (UI) customers who have been determined most likely to exhaust benefits and transitioning veterans receiving unemployment compensation for ex-service members (UCX). IDES Economic Information and Analysis Division will begin using evidence-based strategies to conduct evaluations on the intervention and service delivery models used to administer the RESEA program. The goal is to ensure the service delivery strategies used are reducing the benefit duration and improving the employment outcomes for those UI customers and transitioning veterans. As the program evaluations begin and continue throughout the upcoming fiscal years, IDES will add to the evidence base; increase the workforce system’s understanding of what interventions are successful, for which population of customers and in what context; and expand the use of those service delivery models with strong evidence of success. As part of the evidence-based evaluation, IDES currently does a quarterly narrative (ETA 9178) highlighting the success stories and interventions that have led to reemployment.
• Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) submitted to U.S. DOL/ETA a proposal for multi-year UIPL 23-21 UI Equity grant. In the grant, the Economic Information and Analysis Division identifies three approaches representing key junctures in the unemployment pipeline and address underrepresented groups in the filing of an unemployment insurance (UI) claim, the time lapse from filing to certification and payment, and, finally, the mitigation of benefit exhaustion. First, the “likelihood of UI filing” portal offers critical information to identify target worker demographic populations who historically have been underrepresented in UI services and payments, formulate data-driven response planning to actual job separation events, and conduct proactive outreach activity to increase benefit take-up by those eligible. Second, the “time-lapse” portal includes two sets of reports to improve equity in timeliness to certification and timeliness to payment. Moreover, we propose measures for claimant financial distress to inform service allocation. Third, the “proximity to benefit-exhaustion” portal recognizes that actionable information on mitigation strategies for UI benefit exhaustion requires timely data that is geographically relevant. These portals will be fully integrated into the already developed “Unemployment to Reemployment” website that is funded, in part, by a Workforce Data Quality Initiative Grant (WDQI) awarded to Illinois by U.S. DOL/ETA.
• In collaboration with the Cook County Court, IDES is participating in an Alternative to Incarceration initiative. This initiative provides workforce assistance to delinquent parents of the domestic court division in the Markham Courthouse. As a final opportunity for job placement or retention assistance before punishment (and possible incarceration is imposed), delinquent parents are referred to IDES for assistance in finding employment or employment with a larger wage. Staff are on-site weekly to ease transportation concerns and provide regular follow-up and communication with referring judges. Methods used to evaluate the service delivery model were number of job seekers assisted, services and referrals provided, and whether the person’s job search effort satisfied the court.
• Beginning in FY2020, IDES, in collaboration with the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership and representatives from the City of Chicago, deliver pre-release and post-release workforce services to returning citizens being released from Cook County Jail. The population of returning citizens will fall into three categories to include Sheriff’s Anti-Violence Efforts (SAVE) – young males (18-24) with a high likelihood of recidivism; County Sentenced- adult males with short sentences; and Boot Camp – adult males generally under 20, paramilitary. Prior to implementing, the team will evaluate the pros and cons of serving the populations identified and the service delivery strategies that will be used. This initiative was postponed due to the pandemic. IDES is working with the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership on a plan to provide virtual pre-release services.
• DCEO issued Notices of Funding Opportunity for Workforce Innovation projects in 2017 and 2018. One of this initiative’s target activities includes research and evaluation projects designed to provide insight into the use of best practices and to determine the effectiveness of current workforce efforts. These efforts were limited to evaluating Title IB activities, and thus can be used for a wide range of research topics relevant to improving the state’s workforce. Potential research projects are checked for alignment and coordination with DOL / DOE evaluations. Project concepts can originate from the IWIB, the WIOA core partners, an LWIA or group of LWIAs, or other interested organizations or partnerships, such as sector partnerships, regional and local chambers of commerce, etc. All grants funded under these NOFOs include a requirement for the grantee to conduct a formal evaluation of grant activities, with an assessment of planned vs. actual outcomes, potential best practices and lessons learned. An evaluation template was developed and implemented in. These evaluations are shared with the system as they are completed to help inform and refine future investments and workforce strategies.
• Under the ICCB Adult Education Competitive Grant process, core and some required partners will be used to evaluate grant applications based on established criteria as listed in the Request for Application. Local Workforce Boards were invited to review applications in their LWIA for alignment of services. Each person participated as part of a team led by ICCB staff. All reviewers were provided training, signed a confidentiality agreement, and attended meetings to reach consensus on application scoring.
• All core partners are participated in a multi-state DOL study on Effectiveness in Serving Employers Performance Indicators. Researchers from the Urban Institute, George Washington University and Capital Research Corporation plan site visits with key state-level staff from Titles I - IV and at least two local workforce areas in the spring of 2020. In addition to engaging with state administrators and local WIOA staff as part of the scan of the states, the research team also will work with key national associations to request help with survey outreach to their members, including the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA), Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR), National Association of State Directors of Adult Education (NASDAE), and DirectEmployers. CSAVR and NASDAE members include state administrators of adult and vocational rehabilitation agencies. DirectEmployers members include 875 employers of Fortune 1000 companies that are mostly federal contractors. NASWA members include administrators of adult, dislocated worker and youth programs, and, in many cases, other core programs. The study team is also engaging a federal workgroup at key points in the study to leverage the rich expertise of DOL and Ed agency staff and convening a subject matter expert (SME) panel at critical junctures over the life of the study. A final report was released April 2021.