Toward A Client-Centered Benchmark for Self-Sufficiency: Evaluating the ‘Process’ of Becoming Job Ready

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how service providers, clients, and graduates of a job-training program define the term self-sufficiency (SS). This community-engaged, mixed-method study qualitatively analyzes focus group data from each group and quantitatively examines survey data obtained from participants of the program. Findings reveal that psychological transformation, as a process, represents the emic definition of SS—psychological SS—but each dimension of the concept is reflected in varying degrees by group. Provider and participant views are vastly different from the outcome-driven policy and funder definitions. Implications for benchmarking psychological SS as an empowerment-based process measure of job readiness in workforce development evaluation are discussed.

Keywords:

• Workforce development
• psychological self-sufficiency
• employment hope
• employment barriers
• mixed method

Acknowledgments

Findings from this study were presented at the NASW Restoring Hope conference, Washington, D.C., July 25, 2012.

Ethical approval for this project was given by Saint Louis University to conduct the focus group study (IRB project number 13642) and Loyola University Chicago for the quantitative survey study (IRB project number 599).

Notes

¹LLSIL is a poverty measure created by the Department of Labor that uses the minimum family budget approach (U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, n.d.).