On Thursday, July 8, EMPath President & CEO Beth Babcock joined a panel discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a public policy think tank. Brent Orrell, a senior fellow at AEI, hosted the panel “Minding our workforce: The importance of noncognitive skills in employment.” Beth was joined by fellow panelists Albert Cheng, Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas; Harry J. Holzer, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University; and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

The panelists all authored essays in AEI’s recent report on the same topic. Their discussion centered on the value of noncognitive skills — also called soft skills, social-emotional skills, employability skills, or professional skills —in the labor market.

Beth discussed EMPath’s coaching approach, which supports the development and improvement of executive functioning skills. “When individuals are under stress, we’re impacted in the way we’re able to use strategic thinking and control our self-regulation,” she said. “At EMPath, what we’ve been doing for years now is trying to incorporate what we learn [about toxic stress] from the behavioral and pure sciences to create tools and programs and train staff, and to help people enter into and graduate from training programs, get better jobs, and take care of their families at the same time.”

Watch the full video above and see more details here.