Drawing attention to the need for comprehensive workforce development programs, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Anne E. Casey Foundation are coordinating the efforts of nonprofit Financial Opportunity Centers (FOCs) throughout the city of Chicago to implement a package of job readiness and financial management programs providing services to thousands of needy families.  Using aspects of the Center for Working Families (CWF) model of economic support, this innovative “three-legged stool” approach bundles (1) employment placement and skill improvement, (2) financial coaching and (3) greater access to income supports within a comprehensive service model.

In addition to a larger, quantitative study of services drawn from the full population of service recipients, LISC has developed a qualitative evaluation of services from the perspective of service recipients that will capture recipient outcomes over time.  Gathered from unstructured observations and informal interviews over six waves of data collection encompassing three full years over 3,000 hours of cumulative “hands-on” research, this qualitative study provides a rare and unique glimpse into the daily lives of recipients at baseline and catalogue their behaviors and attitudes as they progress through the FOC program.

Answering the overall question of “how the receipt of bundled services enhances the economic and social outcomes of disadvantaged recipients” this paper provides ongoing data analysis drawn from the qualitative evaluation of these programs.  This paper will discuss this bundled service model and highlight its unique attributes as a workforce development tool.  It then discusses the longitudinal data and offers key insights into how the services and programming have affected the social and economic outcomes of service recipients.  Finally, it will provide new insight into the theoretical backdrop of workforce development literature.  It highlights where current theory could better account for the variable involvement of recipients in services and describe how the scholarship neglects issues of under-employment and piece-meal service utilization.  Qualitative analysis derived from the rich interview data and recipient outcomes will demonstrate how the literature could more effectively incorporate these issues.