Principal Investigators: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
Sponsor: | City of Austin |
Project Duration: | March 2023 – December 2026 |
Description: | The City of Austin has contracted with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) to conduct an evaluation of the City’s workforce training investments. The purpose of this study is to identify within the City of Austin funded workforce development training ecosystem, programmatic or strategic elements that impact participant outcomes. Research findings will be used to guide strategic planning for the City’s workforce development efforts. |
Reports Available: | Evaluation of the City of Austin Investment in Workforce Development: 2023 Annual Report Authors: Cynthia Juniper, Thomas Boswell, and Greg Cumpton, Principal Investigator Date: December 2023 Publication Type: Report, 41 pp. |
AT Home Initiative Evaluation
Principal Investigators: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
Sponsor: | Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) |
Project Duration: | March 2023 – December 2027 |
Description: | In coordination with ECHO, the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will execute the planning and preparation needed to conduct the evaluation of the AT Home Initiative. |
Reports Available: |
RMC contributes to ENBEL policy brief on co-design in climate change and health research
The Ray Marshall Center’s work in Nicaragua (Protection, Resilience, Efficiency, and Prevention for workers in industrial agriculture in a changing climate [PREP]) has focused on measuring the differences in socioeconomic and resilience outcomes between households suffering from chronic kidney disease and those that are not, sampled from four communities that provide agricultural labor for a large local sugar mill. This work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, under the auspices of the Belmont Forum, an international partnership that mobilizes funding of environmental change research and accelerates its delivery to remove critical barriers to sustainability. PREP was one of several projects supported by a recent round of Belmont Forum grantmaking.
The brief published by ENBEL (Enhancing Belmont Research Action to support EU policy making on climate change and health) provides an overview of each of this round’s grantees, summarizing collaborative activities and lessons learned from Climate, Environment, and Health (CEH) projects. The featured projects focus on worker’s health, infectious disease control and early warning, nutrition, maternal health, and local community collaborations. Activities for co-design encompass a range of activities and should begin with the mapping of local stakeholders.
Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development: 2022 Update
Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development: 2022 Update
Authors: Cynthia Juniper, Patty Rodriguez, Heath Prince (Principal Investigator), David McCoy, and Thomas Boswell
Date: March 2023
Publication Type: Report, 181pp.
Introduction:
In FY 2016–FY 2021, Travis County invested over $14 million through contracts with workforce development programs for low-income residents who face challenges in finding steady employment with sufficient earnings to support themselves and their families. These programs provide services ranging from Adult Basic Education (ABE), English as a Second Language (ESL) and high school equivalency certification (HSEC) programs, to short- and long-term skills training leading to certifications and/or associate degrees across a wide range of occupations. These occupations include nursing and other healthcare professions, information technology, skilled trades, manufacturing, and other occupations in area growth industries with good prospects for career advancement.
Four of the Travis County workforce development grantees receive county-funded assistance as a consortium, the Workforce Education and Readiness Continuum–Travis County (WERC-TC). WERC-TC providers are Workforce Solutions Capital Area Career Centers, Goodwill of Central Texas, Austin Area Urban League, and American YouthWorks. Four additional community-based organizations maintaining workforce development contracts with Travis County are included in this report: Literacy Coalition of Central Texas, Capital IDEA, LifeWorks, and Skillpoint Alliance. In addition, WERC-TC grantee American YouthWorks also delivers services to participants through Travis County funding that is not WERC-TC.
To understand program participant outcomes and the impact of these services, the county has contracted with the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources (RMC), an organized research unit in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas, to conduct a longitudinal evaluation of its investments. This evaluation report presents findings and analyses of programs funded during a six-year on-going evaluation (FY 2016–FY 2021).
Nuru Kenya 2022 Dairy Report
Nuru Kenya 2022 Dairy Report
Authors: Thomas Boswell and Heath Prince (Ray Marshall Center), and Fatuma Nyanjong (Nuru Kenya) Casey Harrison, Matt Lineal, and Ian Schwenke (Nuru International)
Date: December 2022
Publication Type: Report, 15pp.
This report is commissioned by Nuru International
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In 2008, Nuru Kenya (NK) set out to provide meaningful choices that empower communities to lift themselves out of poverty in a sustainable way. The integrated Nuru model seeks to address three key areas of need: 1) food insecurity, 2) inability to cope with economic shocks and 3) unnecessary disease and death. From inception, NK developed agriculture, financial inclusion and healthcare programs as solutions for these areas of need by using a co-creative program planning process.
Programs have evolved over the years, and NK has been involved in an increasing number of programs and activities. This report reviews NK’s 2022 impact in the dairy sector, which represents a large portion of their overall programs across two counties, with data in Migori County stretching back to 2017, and new data becoming available this year in Homa Bay County, Kenya. To track impact in the dairy sector, the NK and Nuru International Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning teams collect and analyze data across programs using select survey and analysis methods. Since 2016, Nuru International has partnered with the Ray Marshall Center, an applied research and policy institute, to better understand program outcomes and impacts.
Within the Dairy Program, NK aims to increase milk yields and incomes for farmers, alongside the promotion of a suite of best practices for farmers to follow in order to ensure the best health and production of their animals, as well as provide training on fodder production, and artificial insemination to eligible farmers. Participant households are all members of farmer cooperatives, through which they receive services. Dairy inputs are disbursed on loan and coupled with training and extension services. As members of cooperatives, households repay their loans and increase on-farm income. This enables them to better cope with economic shocks. The cooperatives redistribute loan repayments as a revolving fund that members can access to support local economic growth.
Throughout Kenya, 2022 was a turbulent year. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to disrupt the economy, general elections in August 2022 led to months of economic stagnation due to fears of violence, and prices spiked to historic levels due to global inflation as well as the conflict in Ukraine which saw skyrocketing prices for key farm inputs and fuel for transportation. Despite these events, Nuru Kenya still had a very successful year in the dairy sector. Key findings of this Nuru Kenya 2022 Dairy Report include the following highlights:
- Nuru dairy farmers increased milk yields by 79% over the 2017 baseline, to an average of 3.22 liters per cow per day in Migori County.
- Net profit from dairy activities in 2022 was on average $237 per farmer in Migori County, an income increase of 180% over baseline in 2017.
- 89% of farmers in Migori County are now using best management practices, an increase from 55% of farmers adopting best practices in 2020. Nuru qualifies adoption as farmers adopting at least three of four critical dairy best management practices.
- In Homa Bay, Nuru Kenya was able to gauge initial baseline impact from program expansion, seeing farmers with an average annual net profit of $429, and an average yield of 5.83 liters per cow per day.
RMC’s Cynthia Juniper interviewed for Texas Standard
RMC Research Associate Cynthia Juniper was interviewed recently by Texas Standard on pandemic-era staffing shortages in the childcare sector. “Compared to pre-pandemic levels, Texas’ childcare industry remains understaffed” aired October 17, 2022. You can read a transcript of and listen to the interview here.
Issue 33, September 2022
Dr. Cumpton Interview on Growing Labor Movement and Unionization in Central Texas
Yesterday Dr. Greg Cumpton provided his input to Will Dupree at KXAN on the growing labor movement and unionization in the Central Texas region in response to Ascension Seton nurses voting to unionize. He notes in his follow-up LinkedIn post:
“With high demands from employers, a tight labor market, and inflation eating away at American’s pocket books, employees are hoping to use collective power to increase access to better benefits and pay. Historically positive attitudes from workers around unions have recently increased. According to Gallup, 71% of Americans view unions favorably, the highest measure since 1965.*
With a particularly tight labor market, employers have been offering signing bonuses, higher salaries, and generous benefits to draw new employees. But sometimes existing workers do not receive these same incentives. Unionizing and speaking collectively is one way existing employees might work with employers to seek similar supports. From October 2021 through March of 2022, union representation petitions filed at the National Labor Relations Board have increased 57%.
*Interesting fact, the only year since tracking began that approval dipped below 50% was in 2009.”
Child Care Market Rate/Cost of Quality Studies
Principal Investigators: | Daniel G. Schroeder, PhD (Principal Investigator) – Ray Marshall Center Monica Faulkner (Principal Investigator), Laura Marra (Co-Principal Investigator) – Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing |
Sponsor: | Texas Workforce Commission |
Project Duration: | July 2022 – June 2025 |
Description: | Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin will provide services in order to complete two annual studies for the Texas Workforce Commission. The Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work will manage data collection from child care providers. The Ray Marshall Center at the LBJ School of Public Affairs manages the data analysis and reporting.
The purpose of the Child Care Market Rate Study is to create statistical summaries of market rates for child care for the entire state of Texas and for each of the 28 Local Workforce Development Areas. The purpose of the Cost of Quality Study is to understand the cost of providing quality child care in the state of Texas. The purpose is to provide estimates of how much more additional funding, in terms of daily rates, should be paid to providers who meet quality standards to care for children, relative to how much providers who meet minimal standards are paid. |
Reports Available: | The reports for this project are published through the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing at the University of Texas at Austin’s Steve Hicks School of Social Work. The following reports are available on their website.
2023 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey |
RMC welcomes new Social Science Research Associate, David McCoy
The Ray Marshall Center hired a new Social Science Research Associate (SSRA V), David McCoy, on September 6, 2022. Mr. McCoy comes to the RMC from the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Political Science, where he earned a master’s in political science before pursuing a PhD (currently ABD). He will work on a range of projects with the RMC, including research on education policy and the development of panel data sets that extract insights from individual- and firm-level unemployment insurance data.
Prior to joining the Center, David has focused on the impacts of social assistance policy innovations in local Brazilian government, using mixed methods research design. He has experience generating useful insights from complex, observational data in a range of settings. Recent projects include: the automated coding of 150,000 transcribed statements by legislators to identify the salience of subject matter form a custom dictionary of terms; using quasi-experimental methods, such as matching and difference-in-differences, to identify the short- and medium-term economic shocks to local economies following an unexpected mass migration event in Brazil; and modeling the workplace network density of public sector employees to test differing network structures are associated with greater job satisfaction.
Read more about David here.
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