In workforce development organizations, client-facing staff have difficult jobs. People of color, who frequently endure traumatic experiences, are disproportionately responsible for aiding job seekers in navigating personal and professional obstacles, all while contending with compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma themselves. These circumstances impact workers personally and strain their ability to provide the highest quality services to the job seekers and students they serve.

Furthermore, organizations face additional hurdles such as complex funding stipulations, longstanding power imbalances, and the absence of extensive job quality research tailored to nonprofit employees, all of which impede their operational capabilities. These barriers hinder the identification and implementation of effective strategies to meet these indispensable workers’ needs.

In pursuit of this goal, ReWork partnered with the James Irvine Foundation to initiate partnerships with organizations across three regions in California—the North San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno, and Los Angeles County. Through these collaborations, frontline workers crafted recommendations to propel advancements in the field, leveraging their expertise.