On the duration, I found that when we were doing the 17 weeks in the classroom, we had the opportunity to start out with the soft skills and build the self-confidence before we got into needing the supports for employment skills on the proper way to write resumés and for interview skills and so on. When that was cut to 10 weeks, that really rushed how we had to do things.
Really, everything is based on stats. If you don't have good employment stats, nobody wants to hear from you.