ALMPs for young people in high-income countries: an implementation and process review

Search and screening methods 

To build on the findings from the concurrent CNMA, the current focused on interventions included in the CNMA and reviewed both impact evaluation studies that included implementation evidence, as well as stand-alone implementation and process evaluations (IPEs).

The search strategy included pearling papers of employment services programmes in the CNMA for IPE references as well as using Google Scholar and Youth Futures Foundations’ Evidence and Gap Map (EGM; Apuyno et al., 2024) to search for any independent IPEs of the employment services programmes included in the CNMA. Screening for the current review included two stages: title and abstract screening and a full-text review.

Selection criteria 

Papers for the current review included the IPEs of employment services components of ALMPs identified from included studies in the CNMA review, as this category of programme components was extensively referenced in the papers included in the CNMA and had not been covered in the first iteration of the toolkit. For the IPE review, papers were considered for inclusion if they met the following criteria:

Included employment services components (job search preparation, job search assistance, employment counselling, employment coaching or financial assistance) of ALMPs identified from included studies in the CNMA review

Addressed, even partially, at least two of the five research questions of the current review or provided considerable depth for one of the research questions.

Data extraction

In addition to relevant study and component details transposed across from the CNMA data extraction sheet, the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR; Damschroder et al., 2022) and Proctor et al. (2011) frameworks were used to extract evidence on implementation barriers and facilitators. These included the implementation process, individuals involved, delivery context, wider context, acceptability, adoption/uptake, appropriateness, feasibility, fidelity, implementation cost, reach/penetration and sustainability.

Data was extracted from a total of 20 papers.

These papers covered ALMPs in the UK, USA and Australia.

They included following nine interventions:

1. Activity Agreements Programme (England)
2. Jobs Growth Wales (Wales)
3. New Deal for Young People (UK)
4. Youth Contract for 16- to 17-year-olds (England)
5. Youth Employment Initiative (England)
6. Bridges to Pathways (Chicago, Illinois, USA)
7. New York City Justice Corps (New York City, New York, USA)
8. Youth Transition Demonstration Projects (Colorado, Florida, Maryland, New York, and West Virginia, USA)
9. Transition to Work (Australia)