By Maddie Firth
The Ohio Education Research Center at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs is helping the State of Ohio refine its approach to reemployment services and understand how workforce programs can better support people as they navigate periods of transition.
When Ohioans lose a job, the path back to work is rarely straightforward. Finding new employment takes more than scanning job postings — it requires guidance, structure and access to the right resources at the right time. How that support is delivered can shape not only how quickly someone returns to work but how prepared they are for what comes next.
In Ohio, the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) program is designed to provide that support. Administered through the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in partnership with local workforce development boards, the program connects individuals receiving unemployment insurance benefits with advisors, tools and strategies to guide their job search.
Researchers at the Ohio Education Research Center are working alongside state partners to better understand how the program operates and where it can be improved. Since 2024, that work has included both an impact study, a randomized controlled trial led by Tian Lou, research scientist, examining whether the program improves reemployment outcomes and reduces reliance on unemployment insurance benefits, and an implementation study led by Jessica Collura, senior researcher, investigating how the program operates in practice across communities.
The RESEA program is mandatory for eligible claimants. They meet one-on-one with a local RESEA advisor to verify unemployment insurance eligibility, develop a reemployment plan, review job search strategies and connect to relevant services. The RESEA team in Ohio recently developed a workshop that provides an additional layer of support beyond the standard model used in many other states.
The implementation study focuses on the day-to-day realities of delivering the program. Through quarterly interviews with RESEA advisors across workforce regions, Collura and her team are gathering insights into how the program is experienced on the ground — what is working, where challenges emerge and what support staff need to be effective.
“A key feature of the work is its rapid cycle approach,” Collura said. “Rather than waiting until the end of the study, researchers regularly share findings with state partners, which allows improvements to be made in real time.”
Early findings revealed that many local supervisors lacked in-depth knowledge on how the program should operate, meaning little local support was provided to advisors. In response, the state developed targeted trainings for supervisors to strengthen local leadership and improve support for frontline staff. More recent findings have focused on the role advisors play in identifying potential unemployment insurance eligibility issues. Researchers found variation in how advisors understood what to look for and how to report concerns, prompting the development of additional training to improve consistency and strengthen fraud prevention efforts.
With 18 months remaining, the partnership between the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and the Ohio Education Research Center continues to generate timely, practical insights. By pairing rigorous evaluation with ongoing feedback from those implementing the program, the work is helping Ohio refine its approach to reemployment services and contributing to a broader understanding of how workforce programs can better support people as they navigate periods of transition.