Driving Outcomes with Data & Evidence in Northern Virginia — A Conversation with RFA Workforce Fellow Seema Jain

With Celeste Richie, Vice President, Workforce Development, Results for America & Seema Jain, Vice President of Operations, SkillSource Group, Northern Virginia Workforce Development Board

Two years ago, Northern Virginia had a challenge, not unlike many other regions across the nation. Less than a handful of at-risk young adults were making their way from foster care and juvenile justice systems over to One-Stop Job Centers to enroll in federally-funded workforce programs designed to help them acquire the skills and jobs necessary to help them onto a successful career pathway.

And so in early 2017, The SkillSource Group, Inc., the local workforce development board that oversees Northern Virginia’s public workforce development programs, used data to identify the extent of its lack of enrollment of these young folks and developed a plan using that same data to help address it. Seema Jain, SkillSource’s Vice President of Operations, was part of the team that developed a contract that linked the allocation of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) funds directly to the positive workforce outcomes important to these young folks — earning a degree or certification, getting a job, and staying on a career path — and began refocusing the workforce system in Northern Virginia.

Through this heightened focus on outcomes, SkillSource and its WIOA Youth Operator, Fairfax County Department of Family Services, jointly decided to launch a mobile unit in early 2018 to meet and provide workforce services to at-risk young adults where they were across the Northern Virginia region. Within the first three months, they had enrolled more than 30 young people in workforce services and they doubled that number during the next quarter.

Results for America (RFA) is excited to have Seema and government workforce development officials from six other states participating in the first cohort of our State and Local Workforce Fellowship which we launched this October. Seema will be working with RFA and her state counterpart, Felix Schapiro who serves as a Workforce Policy Analyst to Virginia Governor Northam, to implement two of the seven strategies featured in RFA’s 7 Ways to Improve Workforce Outcomes Using Evidence: 2019 Policy Roadmap for State and Local Officials.

RFA’s Vice President of Workforce Development, Celeste Richie, sat down with Seema to learn more about her organization’s journey toward an evidence- and outcomes-based orientation.

Celeste: When did SkillSource’s journey to being an evidence-driven organization begin and what has your role been in that process?

Seema: SkillSource has always had an interest in outcomes and evidence-based programs, but our journey really began after the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was reauthorized in 2014 with new Pay for Performance (P4P) authority for state and local workforce boards. In 2016, we applied for and were one of five local workforce boards selected by Third Sector Capital Partners to conduct a P4P feasibility study. We focused our P4P project on increasing the number of foster care and justice-involved young adults in our WIOA Youth program, as they were two underrepresented populations that were high-risk, but who, we thought, could experience the greatest long-term impacts with early interventions.​

My role was working with Third Sector to dive deeper into the numbers of eligible young adults in our region, conduct resource mapping to identify key stakeholders we could engage in this project as referral sources, such as local juvenile justice agencies, foster care agencies, and nonprofit, faith-based and community organizations, and to develop the scope and bonus payment structure that we ultimately incorporated into our outcomes-based contract with our WIOA Youth Operator who would deliver the services, in this case, the Fairfax County Department of Family Services.

Celeste: Creating data- and evidence-driven programs and contracts is hard. What have been some of your biggest challenges?

Seema: I think one of our biggest challenges was structuring an outcomes-based contract that would accomplish our goal but also be something our WIOA Youth contractor would agree to. We implemented a phased-in approach that incorporated a traditional cost reimbursement contract with an outcomes-based contract for that reason. Another challenge was how to engage our referral partners and keep them involved. We were fortunate that our partners were driven to work with us on this project because they wanted to provide the greatest level of service to their clients, and they were excited to contribute their time to helping us develop the contract.

Celeste: How has this journey been valuable and what keeps you on this track, despite the challenges you just shared?

Seema: The relationships that we have established through this project have been invaluable. To have some of these partners together in one room, and helping us to put together this project, has created a strong partnership that is still bearing dividends for us. The work involved in launching this project was worth it for the strong results we are seeing — increased enrollments in our WIOA Youth program of justice-involved and foster care young adults and strong training and employment outcomes. Knowing the work we are doing is having an impact on many of these young adults and their families keeps us on track.

Celeste: We are so excited to be working with you as part of our inaugural State and Local Workforce Fellowship. The Virginia team includes yourself and Felix Schapiro from Governor Northam’s Office of the Chief Workforce Development Advisor. What are you hoping to accomplish during this Fellowship?

Seema: We really got started with performance-based contracting with our P4P and are interested in seeing how we can be part of the conversation within our state to put the framework in place to encourage more evidence and performance-based contracting approaches. We have an interest in applying these performance-based contracting opportunities to other funding streams besides the Federal WIOA programs. Also, we are looking forward to hearing what other states are doing, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and what we can replicate and learn from.

Celeste: We are so excited to be working with you. Thank you so much for your time today and for all your work in advancing an evidence-based public workforce system and improving outcomes for our communities!

Learn more about Results for America’s Evidence and Workforce Lab and our State and Local Workforce Fellows.