Summary: With funding of about $1.8 billion a year and about one million participants, Title IIA Job Training Partnership Act programs are the main federal job training effort. This report examines the support services participants received to enable them to attend training. While local service delivery areas reported spending about nine percent of their funds on participant support, this figure is somewhat misleading and sometimes inaccurate. These funds were often spent on work experience that is more of a training activity than a service to help participants attend training. In addition, many local service delivery areas appeared to have improperly charged administrative costs to the participant support cost category. Participants who received one form of support--child care--seemed to fare better than those who had to do without it, more often completing training and finding jobs. Coordination with other programs, such as the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program, can increase money for participant support. Overall, about half of the local service delivery areas said that they had obtained participant support services by cooperating with other agencies.
