Drug Treatment Improves Job Training Effectiveness

A report issued by the Miami (Florida) Coalition for a Safe and Drug-Free Community shows that drug treatment improves the effectiveness of job training and job placement programs. The results offer important lessons for states embarking on new programs to accommodate federally mandated welfare-to-work requirements.

Federal job training programs cost taxpayers nearly $5 billion last year, yet their success has been limited at best. Miami's experience suggests that, by shifting some attention away from pure job skill development and toward enhancing trainees' behavioral skills, it may be possible to instill in trainees the traits necessary to become productive members of society.

Miami attempted to address the shortcomings of the job training programs in its community with Training Assistance Programs (TAPs). Because so many of the participants involved in Miami job training programs were influenced and impacted by the crack cocaine epidemic, Miami's TAPs were designed specifically to address issues related to substance abuse. In fact, the TAPs' primary concerns were preventing the trainees from becoming involved with drugs and assisting those who had already been involved with drugs. The program included group instruction, individual counseling, and special projects. After a year of TAPs, the percentage of students placed in jobs more than tripled for low-income adults and youth.

Two Miami job training agencies incorporated model TAPs into their job training programs for a one-year demonstration project that ran from November 10, 1994 to November 9, 1995. Three different Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) programs were included in the demonstration and report: Title IIA for low-income, unemployed adults; Title IIC for low-income youth; and Title III for dislocated adults.

At the end of the one-year demonstration, a comparison was made between the job training programs' success rates before and after implementation of the TAPs. All three programs saw increases in the percentage of trainees completing job training and in the trainees' job placement rates.

Completion rates for low-income adults rose 28 percentage points, from 41 percent to 69 percent. For low-income youth, completion rates rose 23 percentage points, from 49 percent to 72 percent. Completion rates remained relatively constant among adult dislocated workers. This could be explained by the fact that enrollment in the Title III program serving adult dislocated workers fell from 534 trainees in 1993/94 (in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed scores of Miami businesses) to just 46 in 1994/95. The total number of students enrolled in Title IIA and IIC programs was unaffected by Hurricane Andrew.

Sixty-six percent of the adults who were part of a TAP from the Title IIA program were placed in jobs, up from only 21 percent the previous year. In the Title IIC program, the job placement of youth moved from 22 percent to 67 percent after the TAP was implemented. The program for dislocated workers also saw an increased job placement rate after the incorporation of TAPs, although the increase was significantly smaller.

Robert Rector is a welfare expert at The Heritage Foundation.