Public/Private Ventures (P/PV)

Legacy collection

Innovation. Research. Action.

After almost 35 years Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) has ceased operations. The organization leaves behind an incredible legacy of knowledge, including hundreds of research reports, case studies and evaluations about how best to improve programs and outcomes for children, youth and families. We are fortunate that P/PV has decided to archive its publications collection with the Foundation Center's IssueLab so that practitioners can benefit from this knowledge for years to come.

Search this collection

Clear all

25 results found

Supporting Second Chances: Employment Strategies for Reentry Programs

February 8, 2013

The Second Chance Act supports a range of reentry programs around the country, designed to help those returning from jail or prison make a successful transition to life on the outside. In 2008, the Annie E. Casey Foundation commissioned Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) to create a resource that would be useful for Second Chance Act grantees as they develop employment strategies, by distilling lessons from research on a range of employment programs. "Supporting Second Chances" offers concrete suggestions for practitioners, based on a review of relevant literature and P/PV's own extensive experience with reentry and workforce development research and programming. The guide explores strategies in three major areas:Services aimed at helping people find immediate employment;Services that provide paid job experiences to participants; andServices that help people gain occupational skills.For each area, we provide: an overview of the approach, including its history and a brief definition; a high-level summary of the most recent and rigorous research available about the approach; an example of the approach in action; key "takeaways" for Second Chance Act grantees and other programs serving formerly incarcerated individuals; and where to go to learn more.Since the ultimate success of an employment strategy may hinge on a range of additional supports, the guide also features a section called "Beyond Getting a Job," which presents three approaches to help formerly incarcerated individuals get the most out of their paychecks and move into better jobs. The final section synthesizes lessons drawn from across the studies reviewed for the guide.

Putting Data to Work: Interim Recommendations From the Benchmarking Project

November 17, 2010

Calls on policy makers and funders to foster continuous improvement in workforce development by supporting consistent performance measures, easily exchanged data, useful reports on trends, peer learning opportunities, and broader project participation.

Mentoring Formerly Incarcerated Adults: Insights from the Ready4Work Reentry Initiative

February 10, 2009

This report explores mentoring as a tool for supporting the successful reintegration of formerly incarcerated individuals within the context of a larger reentry strategy -- in this case, the Ready4Workmodel. Ready4Work was a three-year national demonstration designed to address the needs of the growing ex-prisoner population and to test the capacity of community- and faith-based organizations to meet those needs. This report describes Ready4Work's mentoring component; it examines the extent to which mentoring was attractive to participants, the types of adults who volunteered to serve as mentors and how receipt of mentoring was related to participants' outcomes, including program retention, job placement, and recidivism. While this research was not designed to assess the precise impact of mentoring on formerly incarcerated adults, it provides a first look at how mentoring, or supportive relationships more broadly, can fit into comprehensive reentry efforts.

Ready4Work In Brief: Update on Outcomes; Reentry May Be Critical for States, Cities

May 30, 2007

This issue of P/PV In Brief provides updated data from the Ready4Work prisoner reentry initiative, with a focus on the prison crisis occurring in many cities and states. While much more research is needed to understand the true, long-term impact of prisoner reentry initiatives, outcomes from Ready4Work were extremely promising in terms of education, employment and program retention, with recidivism rates among Ready4Work participants 34 to 50 percent below the national average.Funded by the US Department of Labor and the Annie E. Casey and Ford foundations, Ready4Work was a three-year national demonstration project designed to address the needs of the growing ex-prisoner population and to test the capacity of community- and faith-based organizations to meet those needs. Ready4Work programs provided employment services, case management and mentoring in 11 adult sites around the country (data from seven juvenile sites are being analyzed separately).

P/PV Preview: Mentoring Ex-Prisoners in the Ready4Work Reentry Initiative

March 26, 2007

Promoting successful reentry for ex-prisoners is a critical issue facing individuals, families, communities and governments across the country. This brief presents findings from a forthcoming report on the mentoring component of theReady4Work prisoner reentry initiative.Ready4Work participants who met with a mentor remained in the program longer, were twice as likely to obtain a job and were more likely to stay employed than participants who did not meet with a mentor. The report's authors conclude that while mentoring alone is not enough, supportive relationships -- which can be fostered through mentoring programs -- should be considered a core component of any reentry strategy.

The Power of Plain Talk: Exploring One Program's Influence on the Adolescent Reproductive Health Field

May 15, 2006

Launched by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in the early 1990s, Plain Talk is a community-based initiative that seeks to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy and STDs by improving adult/teen communication about sex. A key component of the program is parental involvementwhich was once seen by many in the adolescent reproductive health (ARH) field as a necessary evil rather than important partnership. To determine if Plain Talk had a positive influence on the field's view of parental involvement, and on a number of other related issues, P/PV conducted interviews with 15 leaders from prominent ARH organizations, first in 2003 and again in 2005. This report compiles the results.

Just Out: Early Lessons from the Ready4Work Prisoner Reentry Initiative

February 17, 2006

Just Out examines the early implementation of Ready4Work, a three-year national prisoner reentry demonstration project funded by the US Departments of Labor and Justice the Annie E. Casey and Ford foundations. The report focuses on emerging best practices in four key program areas. While P/PV provided the basic program design to the 17 lead organizations participating in the project, each site was given creative latitude to build programs unique to their own organizations, resources, partnerships and missions. Through this work, many innovative and promising approaches to effective prisoner reentry emerged, as did challenges for which solutions were sought. Just Out focuses of Ready4Work's 11 adult sites (the other six sites serve juvenile offenders). It offers practical advice about recruitment, case management, mentoring and employment, and documents early lessons in this growing area of study, policy and advocacy.

Copy That: Guidelines for Replicating Programs to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

January 19, 2006

Published jointly with The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, this report provides guidance about the replication of effective pregnancy prevention programs. It urges stakeholders to ask a variety of key questions when considering replication: Is the program effective? (What kind of evaluation has been done and what did it show?) What are the essential elements that make the program effective? Is the program ready to be replicated (with clear documentation)? And what is the replication plan? The report gleans lessons from the replication experiences of three programs: The Teen Outreach Program, The CAS-Carrera Program, and Plain Talk, whose national replication is being managed by P/PV.

About this collection:   Creative_commons