About MDRC
Martinez, who joined MDRC in 1997, is an expert in project incubation and startup and serves as a senior advisor to many of MDRC’s youth-focused projects. As director of program development, Martinez plays a key role in new program development across MDRC’s policy areas and centers and oversees MDRC’s grants management and funder relations. Prior to his current role, he served as deputy director of MDRC’s Youth Development, Criminal Justice, and Employment policy area, where he focused predominantly on projects targeting young people, particularly those with disabilities and those in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. Martinez is the current president-elect of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and has served as the chair of its Diversity Committee. He is also the former chair of the board of directors of the National Youth Employment Coalition. Before joining MDRC, Martinez conducted research in a substance abuse treatment center and in a community health center with patients with schizophrenia. He began his career as a food stamp eligibility worker. Martinez holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Virginia.
-
MDRC Publications
Issue FocusNovember, 2021Slingshot Memphis invited MDRC to assess its efforts to strengthen antipoverty organizations that work directly with Memphis families and individuals. This issue focus describes MDRC’s findings and presents suggestions it offered Slingshot to improve its processes, which may be useful to larger human services field.
Issue FocusProfiles of Three Partnerships
October, 2019In this special post to the Implementation Research Incubator blog, we feature a short video in which leaders from three programs describe how MDRC’s implementation research informed their efforts to improve their programs.
ReportLessons from Implementing a Rigorous Academic Program for At-Risk Young People
September, 2015In Gateway to College, students who have dropped out of high school and who are at risk of dropping out simultaneously earn credits toward a high school diploma and a postsecondary degree. This report describes the program model and shares lessons learned from its implementation at three program sites.
ReportDecember, 2012The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. The Broadened Horizons program had positive impacts on paid employment and income but no effect on school enrollment or high school completion.
ReportDecember, 2012The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. While participants in the Career Transition Program were more likely to have used employment-promoting services than youth in a control group, there were no impacts on work, income, or school completion.
ReportDecember, 2012The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. A program in West Virginia produced positive impacts on paid employment, earnings, and income but no effects on school enrollment or high school completion or on cessation of disability benefits.
ReportApril, 2011The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. Participants in the CUNY project were more likely to have been employed for pay than youth in the control group. However, the project had no impacts on income, expectations, or a composite measure of school enrollment or high school completion.
ReportApril, 2011The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. The implementation of the Colorado project deviated from the YTD model, and, while participants were more likely to have used employment services than youth in the control group, the program had no impacts on employment, income, or other measures.
ReportFebruary, 2011The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. While participants in the Erie County, NY, site were more likely to participate in self-sufficiency services, the program has had no impact on employment or school completion in its first year.
ReportMarch, 2010The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating promising strategies to help youth with disabilities become as economically self-sufficient as possible as they transition from school to work. This report offers six overall implementation lessons to help policymakers and administrators develop, fund, and provide interventions for youth with disabilities.
ReportThe Employment Retention and Advancement Project
March, 2009Participants in an intensive care management program for public assistance recipients with substance abuse problems were slightly more likely to enroll in treatment than participants in less intensive services. However, the intensive program had no effects on employment or public benefit receipt among the full sample.
ReportJanuary, 2009The Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD), led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating six promising strategies to help youth with disabilities become as economically self-sufficient as possible as they transition from school to work. This report presents a detailed, comprehensive design for the YTD evaluation.
ReportDecember, 2008The transition to adulthood for youth with disabilities, particularly youth receiving disability program benefits, can be especially challenging. The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating six promising strategies to help youth with disabilities become as economically self-sufficient as possible as they transition from school to work.
ReportFindings from the Jobs-Plus Baseline Survey
September, 2002Tapping a deep pool of survey data to learn about residents’ connections to the labor market, this report dispels some widespread misconceptions. For example, it finds that even in places with high rates of joblessness, many public housing residents have work histories that are extensive and varied, albeit typically in unstable, low-wage jobs.
ReportFindings from the Project on Devolution and Urban Change
May, 2001ReportThe Impact of Parents’ Fair Share on Low-Income Fathers’ Employment
October, 2000 -
Other Publications
-
Projects
The Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential ( LEAP ) project is a three-year nationwide program that provides education and employment services to young people ages 14-25 who are homeless or “systems-involved” — that is, young people who are aging out of the foster care system or who are otherwise involved in the child welfare, criminal justice, or juvenile justice systems...
Youth in the child welfare system tend to have been exposed to multiple traumatic events over time. Between one-half and three-fourths of these youth exhibit behavioral or social issues that are severe enough to warrant mental health treatment — a rate up to five times greater than mental health needs among their peers in the community who are not involved in the child...
In April 2005, approximately 776,000 young people with disabilities between the ages of 14 and 25 were receiving federal Supplemental Security Income benefits. Individuals who began receiving these benefits before age 18 were expected to stay on the disability rolls for an average of 27 years. Programs that could help young people with disabilities make a successful...
The Accelerated Benefits Demonstration tested whether making medical benefits immediately available to new Social Security Disability Insurance ( SSDI ) beneficiaries would improve their health and increase the likelihood they would return to work. SSDI pays cash benefits to eligible workers who are disabled. Financed by Social Security taxes paid by workers, employers...
While welfare agencies and the federal disability system have common goals of supporting people with disabilities and helping them become more independent, the two systems often have diverging interests as well. Differing missions, programmatic and financial challenges, definitions of disability, and rules and incentives related to work make it challenging for the...
Cynthia Miller, Dan Bloom, Dina A. R. Israel, Michelle S. Manno, John Martinez, Megan Millenky, Louisa Treskon, Sally Dai, Caroline Mage, Sharon RowserMaking the successful transition to adulthood had become increasingly challenging for disadvantaged young people. Two changes in the labor market have contributed to this trend. First, the rise in demand for higher skilled workers, while increasing the payoff to college, has resulted in declining real wages for less-educated workers. On top of this, youth are finding...
Kate Gualtieri, Dan Bloom, Melissa Boynton, William Corrin, Fred Doolittle, John Martinez, Louisa Treskon, Jean Grossman, Leigh Parise, Marie-Andrée Somers, Michelle S. Manno, Rebecca Unterman, Megan Millenky, Rashida Welbeck, Mary BambinoThe Social Innovation Fund ( SIF ) , an initiative enacted under the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act, targets millions of dollars in public-private funds to expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development and school support.
Most of the children who are placed in out-of-home care through the child welfare system exit to a “permanent” placement with a family member, or they are adopted or placed with a legal guardian. However, more than 20,000 young people each year “age out” of care, usually when they reach age 18. Most of these young people entered foster care in their teens after having...
Richard Hendra, Cynthia Miller, Susan Scrivener, Frieda Molina, David Navarro, Barbara S. Goldman, Dan Bloom, John Martinez, Mark van Dok, Erika Lundquist, Edith Yang, Alexandra PenningtonThe federal welfare overhaul of 1996 ushered in myriad policy changes aimed at getting low-income parents off public assistance and into employment. These changes — especially cash welfare’s transformation from an entitlement into a time-limited benefit contingent on work participation — have intensified the need to help low-income families become economically self-...