Finding Employment After Incarceration: The Effects of an Inoculation Against Setbacks Microtrial On Job Search Expectancies in a Post Release Population

Introduction: Ex-offenders face unique challenges to finding employment that make designing effective interventions difficult. Also, interventions are usually comprised of many intricate factors and address a variety of client needs. But, the exact processes that make interventions effective are often unclear. The present study employs the Microtrial intervention design – a mini intervention focused on impacting only one factor. In this case, the intervention is aimed at increasing ex-offenders’ persistence in the face of setbacks related to the search for employment. The effectiveness of this factor was measured by differences in ex-offenders’ job search expectancies and change in job search behaviors during two waves of data collection. In addition, this study tested the moderating effects of Impulsivity on the effectiveness of this intervention.

Methods: We surveyed 47 unemployed individuals looking for full time employment. Participants were first interviewed within the first six months after release, and a second time between 14 to 29 days following the initial interview. They were recruited through employment programs offered at outreach organizations in the greater DC area. The subjects were predominantly male (91.49%) and Black (85.11%). The mean age was 40, with an average of 12.43 years of education. All participants were asked to complete 3 different measures of impulsivity at the initial point of data collection; two self-report measures and 1 behavioral measure (Eysenck Impulsivity Subscale, Eysenck, et al., 1985; UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale, Whiteside, et al., 2005; Balloon Analogue Risk Task, Lejuez, et al., 2002) as well as Job Search Expectancies and Job Search Activities Questionnaires (Howe et al., 2010). Participants were then randomly assigned to either a treatment group or a control group. The treatment group completed the Stress Inoculation Training Module tailored for a post release population and based on the JOBS program, an experimentally developed and tested intervention (Caplan, Vinokur & Price, 1997). The control group worked on more traditional job search activities, such as resume preparation and pursuing online job leads. All participants were then asked to complete the Job Search Expectancies Questionnaire a second time. During the follow-up, participants completed both the Job Search Expectancies and Activities Questionnaires one last time.

Results: After we test the correlation of the three measures of impulsivity, analyses will examine the efficacy of the Stress Inoculation Training Module over the control condition to increase job search expectancies immediately following the intervention.  The role of impulsivity will also be discussed.  The second set of analyses will examine the effect of the Module on job search expectancies and activities at the follow-up.  Exploratory analyses will test the generalizability of finding across demographic variables.

Conclusion: When designing interventions aimed at increasing employment rates for citizens re-entering the community, it is important to consider the efficacy of specific components within the larger project designs; the Microtrial design is shown to be an effective way of testing these individual components.