Promoting Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE): New York State PROMISE Process Analysis Report

Key Findings:

• NYS PROMISE operated in three regions of the state: the Capital Region, Western New York, and New York City. The Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene (RFMH) led the day-to-day implementation of the program and shared leadership responsibilities with Cornell University’s K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, which additionally provided training and technical assistance to the program’s staff and designed and implemented program quality improvement processes. Three types of organizations served NYS PROMISE youth and their families through contracts with either RFMH or Cornell: (1) research demonstration sites delivered case management to youth; (2) parent centers delivered family coaching and training to parents and guardians; and (3) local service providers delivered employment and education services, benefits counseling, and financial literacy training to youth and parents and guardians. Although it was not originally part of the program model, midway through the program’s operational period RFMH hired community case managers to deliver case management to youth in New York City and community employment specialists to provide them with employment services.
• NYS PROMISE enrolled 2,090 youth in the evaluation of the program, 1,057 of whom were assigned to the treatment group. Three years into program operations, NYS PROMISE had engaged 90 percent of treatment group youth as participants in the program. Take-up of most services was low. Participating youth had an average of 3.4 meetings with a case manager, about one-quarter to one-half of the expected number of meetings, and 15 percent received a referral to employment services. Almost all participating youth had a parent referred to parent coaching and information sharing, but only 19 percent and 12 percent had a parent referred to benefits counseling and financial literacy training, respectively.
• The frequency of communication and the extent of working relationships at the administrative level among the partners in the Capital Region (the only region for which we received enough survey responses from administrators to support the analysis) increased throughout implementation. Communication and collaboration among frontline staff across partner organizations varied by region—they were generally lower in the Capital Region, higher in Western New York, and intermediate in New York City. The strength of the service networks increased somewhat between early and late program implementation in the Capital Region but remained stable in the other two regions.
• The process analysis suggests that conditions were mixed for finding positive impacts of NYS PROMISE on youth and families. A large share of treatment group youth and families participated in the program, but service take-up was low. NYS PROMISE assigned all control group youth to case managers and all control group parents and guardians to family coaches, so control group members likely received more case management services than they would have in the absence of the program. However, there was little risk that control group members received services other than case management from the program.

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