NOVEMBER 2018 | FINAL REPORT THE ROLE OF THE ARTS AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION IN EMPLOYABILITY AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY PREPARED BY NORC AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO NOVEMBER 2018 | FINAL REPORT RESEARCH TEAM Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard, Northwestern University Gwendolyn Rugg, NORC at the University of Chicago Michael Reynolds, NORC at the University of Chicago Carol Hafford, NORC at the University of Chicago The Role of the Arts and Creative Expression in Employability and Economic Opportunity | II NOVEMBER 2018 | FINAL REPORT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors of this report are grateful to the many individuals who generously shared their time, experience, and insights to illuminate the ways artistic and creative expression are currently being used, and can be used, to assist people in poverty, helping them prepare to seek, maintain, and advance within employment opportunities. We would like to give special thanks to: ■■ The James Irvine Foundation for supporting this study. ■■ The interviewees listed at the end of the report for graciously taking our calls, opening their doors, sharing their expertise, and providing insights that shaped and informed our work. ■■ The many individuals who are not explicitly named in this report, but who generously shared their personal experiences and aspirations with the research team. ■■ Katherine Bauer from Northwestern University, who made significant contributions to this report. ■■ Sephora Leon and Megan Robinson from Vanderbilt University, who provided early-stage research assistance. ■■ Ernest Tani and Lynette Bertsche from the NORC Library, who provided research support. ■■ Imelda Demus and Yajaira Gijon from NORC, who provided production assistance. The Role of the Arts and Creative Expression in Employability and Economic Opportunity | III NOVEMBER 2018 | FINAL REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction .......................................................... 1 A more holistic approach to creating economic opportunity ....... 1 2 How artistic and creative expression is being used to bolster job readiness and employability ... 4 Alignments: Gaining employability skills and resources ............... 5 Organizational approaches to using artistic and creative activities to bolster employability and economic opportunity .... 11 3 Illustrative cases: Making artistic and creative expression work ................................................. 13 artworxLA ....................................................................................... 15 Code Tenderloin ............................................................................. 18 With Love Restaurant .................................................................... 20 First Peoples Fund ......................................................................... 22 Poverty and the Arts ...................................................................... 26 Downtown Women’s Center ......................................................... 28 Rebel Nell ....................................................................................... 32 People’s Resource Center.............................................................. 36 Workforce Development Institute ................................................. 39 4 Takeaways and reflections .................................. 41 5 Appendices......................................................... 44 Interviewees .................................................................................. 44 Related resources .......................................................................... 45 The Role of the Arts and Creative Expression in Employability and Economic Opportunity | IV NOVEMBER 2018 | FINAL REPORT 1 INTRODUCTION Today’s global economy is marked by a working, especially those in low-wage jobs, widening gulf between wealth and poverty. may still struggle to make ends meet. While the U.S. economy has made a steady recovery since the Great Recession, Simply put, we live in a time when many millions of people still struggle to make Americans face significant economic ends meet: 12.7 percent of Americans lived hardship. This hardship touches every in poverty in 2016. More strikingly, among aspect of a person’s day-to-day life and those who live in poverty, the portion living wellbeing, from making it difficult to in severe poverty is increasing, and reached afford basic necessities such as housing, a 20-year high in 2016 (Bialik, 2017; family care, education, and mental and Semega, Fontenot, & Kollar, 2017). physical health care, to prompting more existential distress related to one’s sense This rising economic inequality is of identity, purpose, and self-worth. compounded by the rapidly changing These circumstances can lock people landscape of job opportunities available into a cycle of hardship: being faced with to the American workforce. While the such substantial practical and personal acceleration of the information economy challenges can make it ever more difficult is creating new kinds of jobs, it is also to set oneself on a path toward financial decreasing the demand for—or eliminating stability. altogether—others, many of which have traditionally been held by people from the middle and working classes, leaving A more holistic many to struggle to find their place in today’s workforce (National Academies of approach to creating Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017). economic opportunity Even among those who are employed, In the face of this persistent hardship and the cost of living in the United States is rapid economic and technological change, outpacing wage growth: adjusting for it is important to look at every possible inflation, American wages in 2017 were just pathway for addressing and mitigating 10 percent higher than they were in 1973, the barriers to economic opportunity that an increase that has not kept pace with the confront so many people in the United rising costs of housing, education, child States today. Finding and maintaining care, and health care (Claxton, Rae, Levitt, steady, living-wage employment is a vital & Cox, 2018; National Center for Education pathway toward financial stability. As Statistics, 2018; Pew Charitable Trusts, numerous factors feed into an individual’s 2018; Shambaugh, Nunn, Liu, & Nantz, preparedness for employment, educational 2017). This means that even those who are institutions, workforce development The Role of the Arts and Creative Expression in Employability and Economic Opportunity | 1 NOVEMBER 2018 | FINAL REPORT organizations, and social service organizations have developed numerous approaches to preparing people for success in today’s workforce. This report focuses on one relatively underutilized, but promising, approach: engaging people with artistic production and creative expression as a means to improve their employability and economic opportunities. Because so many factors affect a person’s ability to become and remain employed in living-wage work, organizations offer not only those services meant to train and help people find and retain employment, but also services that can help them mitigate the life challenges preventing them from finding work or securing promotion. Some organizations working with specific populations offer suites of wraparound services themselves. Others offer opportunities through a networked approach, developing relationships with others within the local workforce system to coordinate and leverage access to additional resources and opportunities for the people they serve. Amid growing recognition of the need for people-focused, “integrated and holistic approaches” to workforce development and social service delivery (Kresge Foundation, 2014, p. 3), the central questions of this report are as follows: What are the ways that artistic and creative expression are being used to improve people’s job readiness, employability, and economic opportunity? How do such opportunities operate? How do they make a difference to the people who engage in the opportunities? Given the foundational nature of these questions, this study is exploratory. To begin, we reviewed existing research and theoretical frameworks across multiple areas of research and practice, including workforce development, social services, education, and the arts.1 We found that the intersection of artistic and creative expression with job readiness, employability, and economic opportunity has not been the focus of much research or publication. Existing research on the topic primarily pertains to youth and young adults, with seemingly broad recognition of the value and benefits of providing young people with programs and training opportunities in and through artistic forms in order to achieve educational and employment gains (Catterall, 2012). Research that we considered at the intersection of creative expression and economic opportunity for adults age 25 and older primarily discussed the use of arts practices as a formal means of therapy to address mental and other health and behavioral issues that may be a challenge to a person’s ability to find or retain employment. By and large, however, this literature discussed the therapies in terms of health benefits, not necessarily in connection to helping a person enter the workforce. Through in-depth interviews with workforce development professionals, we also confirmed this relative dearth of existing information on the intersection of artistic and creative expression with job readiness, employability, and economic opportunity. 1 The complete list of materials reviewed is available in