Participant and Staff Perspectives on Success in the HPOG 2.0 Program
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families: 2025
What does success look like to someone navigating healthcare training while raising children, managing unstable housing, and holding down a job? This research brief, published by the federal Office of Planning Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), explores exactly that question. Hannah Thomas led a qualitative study drawing on in-depth interviews with 153 HPOG 2.0 program participants and staff across 14 local programs in 17 states—surfacing how participants and frontline staff understood progress, achievement, and the obstacles that stood in the way.
The findings reveal that success was defined not just by credential attainment or earnings—the traditional markers in workforce evaluation—but also by gains in self-confidence and autonomy, the ability to overcome concrete barriers like childcare and transportation, and the experience of feeling that one’s efforts truly mattered. The brief argues for expanding how future workforce and career pathway evaluations measure these deeper, human dimensions of program impact.
Hannah Thomas led this research prior to founding Incevia Policy Partners.