The Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State (Clearinghouse) has been awarded a $100,000 grant from The Heinz Endowments to support the evaluation of four prominent national nonprofit programs — Hiring Our Heroes, Hire Heroes USA, VetJobs and Onward to Opportunity— dedicated to improving veteran-employment outcomes.
“Through this collaboration with The Heinz Endowments, we aim to identify best practices from these veteran-employment programs that can serve as scalable models for communities across the U.S.,” said Daniel Perkins, principal scientist at the Clearinghouse and professor of family and youth resiliency and policy in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “Our work will provide valuable insights into what truly drives success in veteran employment, helping ensure that veterans across the country have access to the tools and opportunities they need to build fulfilling post-service careers.”
The grant supports the second phase of the Clearinghouse’s comprehensive evaluation, and the key goals include the following:
- Data mapping and analysis: Engage with participating programs to understand the data variables they collect, define consistent outcome measures for variables and map variables to a unified framework.
- Components analysis: Produce individual reports for each participating program and analyze each program's core components and approaches to determine what works best in helping veterans secure employment.
- Data transfer: Facilitate the secure transfer of program data to the Clearinghouse to create a comprehensive dataset for further analysis.
- Research and dissemination plan: Develop a plan for the next phase of research that includes nationwide dissemination of findings to improve veteran-employment programs.
“These data-driven approaches are essential to making meaningful improvements in veterans’ support systems,” said Katie Davenport, assistant research professor at the Clearinghouse. “Through rigorous evaluation, we can identify what works, what doesn’t and where there are gaps in services. This allows us to make informed recommendations and improvements to veteran-support programs and ensure resources are directed where they will have the greatest impact.”
In the third phase of this project, researchers will evaluate each program’s impact by comparing a group of veterans from a previous long-term study to those in the current study. This phase will look at the effectiveness of individual programs, as well as the combined impact of the four major nonprofit employment initiatives for veterans. Ultimately, the study aims to provide critical insights into what drives successful employment outcomes for veterans across various support programs.
About The Heinz Endowments
The Heinz Endowments seeks to help Pennsylvania thrive as a whole and just community and, through that work, intends to model solutions to major national and global challenges. They are devoted to advancing their vision of southwestern Pennsylvania as a vibrant center of creativity, learning and social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Their work is supported by reliable data based on equitable, results-focused goals that aim to cultivate a world in which all people are treated with fairness and respect and have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential.
About the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness
The Clearinghouse is an applied research center committed to advancing service members' and their families' health and well-being. The Clearinghouse takes a solution-oriented approach that includes conducting applied research studies, building workforce expertise through training and resource provision, implementing and evaluating evidence-informed programs and practices and delivering objective data and policy-relevant findings, so decisions are based on the best science and evidence available. The Clearinghouse is located within Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute.