Young Parents Demonstration Program – Blanket Purchase Agreement

Project Summary:
The Young Parents Demonstration (YPD) Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (DOL/ETA) to test innovative strategies that can improve the skills and education of young parents and, ultimately their employment and earnings. Thirteen grants were awarded in 2009. Grant recipients include seven Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) or One-Stop Career Centers and six community-based nonprofit service provider organizations. The YPD initiative is designed to provide educational and occupational skills training that fosters family economic self-sufficiency to young parents (both mothers and fathers) and expectant parents 16 to 24 years of age. The YPD projects serve young parents including, as applicable, those in high-risk categories such as victims of child abuse, children of incarcerated parents, court-involved youth, youth at risk of court involvement, homeless and runaway youth, Native American youth, migrant youth, youth in or aging out of foster care, and youth with disabilities. The YPDP grantees are required to develop a “bump-up” intervention that provides an additional level above and beyond the existing level of services specifically intended to increase an individual’s education, job training and employment. With a 50/50 chance of being in either group, individuals enrolling in the program are randomly assigned to treatment (bump-up) and control groups. Those individuals assigned to the treatment, or “bump-up,” group receive the additional services, while individuals assigned to the control group receive the existing services offered by the grantee. A key factor in the bump-up design is having a single, persistent intervention for the treatment group that is substantially different from what the control group receives. Each of the grantees is implementing one of the following bump-up interventions: (1) professional staff mentoring/navigation or (2) occupation-specific training.

Under its MOBIS GSA Federal Supply Schedule contract, Capital Research Corporation has been awarded a five-year contract to compete for and conduct a series of task order assignments to conduct an impact study of the Young Parents Demonstration Program. Task orders that can be implemented under this blanket purchase agreement are to provide the following types of research activities: evaluation design, convening of a peer review panel, setting up and monitoring random assignment under the net impact study, development of OMB clearance documents for surveys, design and conduct of large-scale participant surveys, collection of administrative data, design of participant tracking systems, and data analysis and reporting.