Adult and Young Adult Reentry Project Grants: Differences in Service Offerings and Implementation Challenges
Evidence | Publications

Adult and Young Adult Reentry Project Grants: Differences in Service Offerings and Implementation Challenges

Published: Sep 30, 2022
Publisher: Mathematica
Human Services Justice Criminal Justice Employment Reentry Federal
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Full Publication
Associated Project

Reentry Projects Grant Evaluation: Serving Justice Involved Adults and Young Adults

Time frame: 2017-2024

Prepared for:

U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Chief Evaluation Office

Authors

Tressa Stapleton

Jonathan Ladinsky

Jeanne Bellotti

Key Findings
  • From 2017 to 2019, DOL awarded a total of $118 million across 64 adult RP grants and $124 million across 52 young adult RP grants.
  • While both adult and young adult grantees relied heavily on referrals from criminal justice system partner agencies, a higher proportion of young adult CBO grantees than adult CBO grantees indicated that community outreach efforts were their largest referral source and a lower proportion of young adult CBO grantees reported word-of-mouth as their largest source of referrals compared with adult CBO grantees.
  • Analysis of grantee survey and qualitative data suggest that adult and young adult services may differ in four key areas: (1) positive youth development components (2) legal services for child support and diversion, (3) educational services and requirements, and (4) program length.
  • Young adult grantees reported the following challenges significantly more often than adult grantees: recruiting participants, engaging and retaining those participants throughout the course of service delivery, and placing participants in employment.

Between 2017 and 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded Reentry Project (RP) grants to 64 grantees focused on serving adults and 52 grantees aimed to serve young adults. Using data collected as part of the RP Grants Evaluation, this issue brief describes the differences and similarities between adult and young adult grantees in terms of the services they offered and the implementation challenges they reported. Findings draws on data collected through a grantee survey, grant applications, and virtual site visits with 27 RP programs.

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