Recent Practice Documents: December 2000
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New Abstracts from NCOFF
Reading Family Ties For Men: Program for Incarcerated Fathers, Florida Department Of Corrections, Anne Haw Holt,
presented at the The North American Conference on Fathers Behind Bars and on The Street, sponsored by the Family and Corrections Network, September 13, 2000.
U.S. Department of Justice figures confirm that approximately two thirds of state inmates in the United
States are fathers. This suggests that more than one million children are affected by this separation
throughout the United States, and thousands in Florida. The majority of research on incarceration and
families has focused on mothers, with little attention paid to the problems of the inmate as a father. The
information researchers have collected examines (1) Father-child interaction, (2) structure of families
and parenting experience, (3) psychological responses of father and child, and (4) programs to assist
incarcerated fathers with the problems created by this separation.
Present research considers legal, economic, environmental, emotional, and relationship issues
affecting incarcerated fathers and their children. Charles S. Lanier of the Hindelang Criminal Justice
Research Centre at the University of Albany New York urges more study in these areas. Only a small
amount of information is available, and many more studies are needed to obtain an adequate
understanding of how a separation of father and child by the father's incarceration affects either party.
Separation from a parent by incarceration "is likely to be traumatic, disrupt personal and family bonds,
and worsen the family's social and financial situation. Behavioral problems also tend to emerge in a
sizeable minority of children."
The Child Welfare League of America argues that "as a result of parental incarceration, many of this
population of children have experienced multiple placements, decreased quality of care, financial
hardship and irreparable damage to family bonds. Because of these traumas, they are at risk for poor
academic achievement, substance abuse, delinquency and criminal activity that can lead to their own
incarceration." 4/ At present, approximately 50% of the children of inmates are expected to enter the
juvenile justice system before they are eighteen.
Florida Department of Corrections has little information on the number of children affected by a father's
incarceration and virtually none on how the children respond to their situation. We can only apply
admittedly sketchy national numbers to obtain an estimate. Additionally, behavioral statistics available
to us primarily study male children, with little consideration of the effect of parental incarceration on
females, a portion of juvenile and adult offenders growing at an alarming rate in Florida and throughout
the nation.
Surveying a large number of the fathers incarcerated in Florida correctional facilities will provide a
starting point for understanding the scope of the problem, an opportunity to compare Florida's situation
with national norms, and approaches we might use in making changes.
The last four pages of this proposal are the survey we will request that each participant in "Reading
Family Ties" complete. This document will give us critical information, as outlined above, and help the
father focus on the effect of his incarceration on his children.
We propose to reinforce the connection of incarcerated fathers with their minor children through
parenting education, letter writing, and helping them read a story on audio-tape to mail to their child.
Activities that maintain the bond between father and child during this separation will improve the
transition of the father from custody back to family and society, reducing recidivism.
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The Welfare Rules Databook - State TANF Policies as of July 1998, Gretchen Rowe, Urban Institute, November 2000.
Introduction and Background
This publication, The Welfare Rules Databook, provides tables containing key Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policies for each state as of July 1999, as well as longitudinal tables describing a subset of states' policies from 1996 through 1999. The tables are based on the information in the Welfare Rules Database (WRD), a publicly available, online database developed under the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism project.
The Databook is divided into five groups of tables: Initial Eligibility in 1999; Benefits in 1999; Requirements in 1999; Ongoing Eligibility in 1999; and Policies across Time, 1996-1999. Each chapter begins with an overview of the policies, followed by details relating to specific tables.
The Databook provides a summary of the detailed information in the WRD. Users interested in a greater level of detail are encouraged to use the full database, available at http://newfederalism.urban.org/wrd.
The following sections discuss the background and structure of the WRD, and the contents and structure of the tables in this paper.
For a copy of the full booklet in PDF format, visit the Urban Institute web site.
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Resources For Welfare Decisions, Vol. 4, No. 12, Welfare Information Network, December 2000.
Soft Skills Training for Job Readiness
Low-income individuals with limited exposure to the world of work may lack the "soft skills" needed to get a job, stay employed, and advance. Soft skills are the nontechnical skills, abilities, and traits that workers need to function in a specific employment environment. They include four sets of workplace competencies: problem-solving and other cognitive skills, oral communication skills, personal qualities and work ethic, and interpersonal and teamwork skills (Leigh, et al., 1999).
Surveys of employers who hire entry-level workers reveal how important it is for job candidates to have soft skills. In Job Prospects for Welfare Recipients: Employers Speak Out, researchers found that a positive attitude and reliability are the two qualities that employers identify as most important when hiring someone for entry-level work (Regenstein et al., July 1998). Problems with interpersonal and other soft skills are a major barrier to employment that employers do not believe they can address on their own (Welfare to Work Partnership, 2000).
There are different ways to provide soft skills training to individuals moving into the workforce. A job readiness curriculum that emphasizes employability skills is one approach.À Soft skills training can also be incorporated into vocational training and other program activities. Agencies that provide employment-related services can structure programs to simulate the workplace. In addition, post-employment activities, such as case management, support groups, mentoring, and job coaching, provide À opportunities to work on soft skills based on clients÷ work-related experiences. One challenge for agencies is to assess and document soft skills. Agencies can market their soft skills training to employers and work with local employers to develop standards for job readiness. There is not a large body of research on soft skills and disadvantaged individuals, so readers interested in learning more about soft skills training are encouraged to follow up with the program contacts included in this Resource Note. Readers can also visit the Welfare Information Network (WIN) web page on job readiness, search, and placement at http://www.welfareinfo.org/job.htm...
What Organizations Are Doing
The Denver Workforce Initiative (DWI) is part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation÷s Jobs Initiative demonstration designed to help low-income individuals secure living-wages jobs. DWI has developed the innovative "Workin÷ It Out" training programs for entry-level workers and supervisors that emphasize the soft skills needed for sustained employment. These programs teach cognitive and behavioral skills that provide workers and supervisors with the insights and skills to resolve work-related problems and succeed in social interactions. The "Workin÷ It Out" program helps inexperienced entry-level workers understand the unspoken rules of the workplace and develop basic communication and problem-solving skills. The "Managing to Work It Out" program for supervisors imparts strategies for resolving workplace conflict and for motivating and communicating with entry-level workers. These training programs are designed for delivery at the workplace. Two other programs are part of the series. The "Learning to Work It Out" program targets individuals with multiple barriers to employment and "Beginning to Work It Out" focuses on at-risk youth. For more information, contact Carol Hedges, director, Denver Workforce Initiative, at 303/825-6246...
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Social Purpose Businesses: Supported Work and Training Settings for Hard-to-Place Welfare Recipients, Fredrica D. Kramer, Design Brief, Welfare Information Network, December 2000.
Objectives and Scope
Assuring employment for those with multiple barriers often requires ongoing training within the workplace, intensive and specialized supervision, delivery of additional support services and sustained case management.À It also may require workplace designs that accommodate such special supports, and control over a market or product niche to maintain job and training opportunities for those with continued need for assistance.À
This Design Brief explores one way of creating those specialized work settings.À It is directed at the potential for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) agencies, workforce development agencies and others to partner with community-based organizations or for-profit employers in order to support businesses whose principal purpose is to train and/or employ those who would probably not succeed in the competitive labor market.
Sometimes known as "social purpose business ventures," these businesses have often been developed by organizations serving extremely disadvantaged populations, such as formerly homeless individuals with addiction or mental health impairments.À Some borrow from the experience of sheltered workshops for individuals with severe physical or psychological limitations and build in extra supports, but with an eye toward graduated entry into mainstream employment.À Many look much like mainstream businesses, albeit with an on-the-job training component.À While we borrow lessons from all of these experiences, we are attempting here to describe only businesses that deliberately accommodate, either at the work site or within a broader service strategy, those with multiple barriers to work.
Creating businesses is not a usual role for TANF agencies, and indeed it is probably inappropriate for TANF agencies to employ recipients directly.À But using TANF funds to leverage initiatives may be both appropriate and useful for serving harder-to-place clients. The intention here is to provide sufficient background to enable TANF and workforce development agencies to initiate informed discussions with potential partners in the community or corporate sectors to jointly support business ventures that can train or employ those with multiple challenges. There is now a resurgence of interest among community development corporations, foundations and some for-profit employers in developing businesses to provide jobs and training in distressed areas, and a growing literature from which to draw instruction on training and employing those with special needs. ((See especially the work of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) from which this brief draws heavily, and the Urban Enterprise Fund.))...
Genisio, M. H. (1996). Breaking barriers with books: A fathers' book-sharing program
from prison. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 40(2), 92-100. This article
presents and evaluates Breaking Barriers with Books, a program that helps incarcerated
fathers to maintain an active relationship with their children through sharing children's
books. The program consisted of a weekly class/workshop, family visits, and a weekly parent
support meeting. The 249 fathers in the program were encouraged to craft their own book
sharing experiences with their children. The fathers varied in their own reading abilities,
and were encouraged by the author to focus on the shared time with their children rather than
their own reading deficiencies, though some were motivated by the program to improve their
reading. The goals of the program were to provide children with opportunities to enjoy books
with their fathers as they would at home; to strengthen parent-child bonds and create
positive memories; to create paternal empowerment by providing fathers with information to
use in book sharing; and to provide a model for a fathers' support group that could be
replicated later. The instructional component of the program consisted of classes at the
correctional institution designed to give fathers ideas and information for book sharing and
discussing book content. The second component, parent/child visitation, included the actual
book sharing. Fathers were encouraged to relate personally to the child and encourage the
child to relate to the books in a personal way, and to preserve memories through journal
writing. The third program component, the parent support group, met following classes and
prior to family visits. The support group focused on journal writing and discussed ideas
about meeting goals of the programs and problems that arose. The books the author chose for
the program had positive messages and could easily be used by fathers for extension
activities. Fathers could choose any book they wished and were encouraged to design extension
activities. Through journal writing, fathers could chronicle their own feelings about their
relationships with their children, and write poetry of their own. The success of the book
sharing program was evident in the consistent participation of all the enrolled fathers and
they ideas they came up with to enhance the program. In the future, the program will expand
to include children who can not be physically present, meetings at the children's schools,
and inmates who are not currently part of the program.
Bos, H., Huston, A., Granger, R., Duncan, G., Brock, T., McLoyd, V., et al. (1999,
July). Can anti-poverty programs improve family functioning and enhance children's
well-being? [Working Paper 103.0] Chicago: JCPR. This study is an investigation of the
effects of the New Hope Project, a 3-week employment- based anti-poverty program, on family
functioning and children's well-being. The authors outlined the components of the New Hope
Project, including job search assistance, wage supplements, health care subsidies, and
childcare subsidies. The study included a sample of 1,357 participants; data were presented
for 812 experimental and control group parents. All participants were from one of two
Milwaukee neighborhoods, one predominantly Black, one predominantly Latino. The percentage of
Black participants and Latino participants in the sample was not provided. Participants
responded to demographic surveys; administrative data on employment and earnings were
obtained from unemployment and welfare offices; data on children's behavior were obtained
from surveys mailed to teachers. Data included participants' earnings, work hours, total
family income, and material hardship. Parents' psychological well-being, parental warmth,
parental monitoring, cognitive stimulation, parent-child relations, childcare, child
activities, children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors, children's positive and
problem behavior, and children's aspirations were also assessed. The results showed that
families who were working fulltime at the initial interview used more of, and were quicker to
use, the benefits offered. These families used also benefits for a longer period of time than
families working less than fulltime. All the families used the benefits that best suited
their needs. The program had a positive impact on employed parents' social support and sense
of hope, and a negative effect on unemployed parents' perceptions of time pressure. The
program had a positive impact on employed parents' parental warmth and parental monitoring.
Program children were more likely to spend time in formal childcare than were control
children. Teachers rated program boys as more socially competent, compliant, and autonomous
than control boys; teachers also reported that program boys exhibited fewer behavior
problems. The authors recommend that policymakers expand childcare availability and
after-school programs.
Hamilton, G., & Scrivener, S. (1999, September). Promoting participation: How to
increase involvement in welfare-to-work activities. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research
Corporation. This guide provides an overview of suggested strategies to increase welfare
recipients' participation in employment-preparedness programs. The passage of the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) is briefly described. The
guide defines hard-to-serve welfare recipients as those who have little work experience and
skills, those with physical or mental disabilities, those with substance abuse and behavioral
problems, victims of domestic violence, and those with unstable housing resources. The
authors suggest that welfare-to-work programs screen their participants in order to identify
hard-to-serve populations. Strategies for assisting this group are presented. Such strategies
include referring special needs clients to agencies trained to deal with this population,
providing staff with training for dealing with special needs clients or hiring specifically
trained staff, providing peer support groups for clients, and extending transitional supports
for those moving into work. The authors also argue that agencies should expand the definition
of program participation to include counseling, substance abuse treatment, and other programs
that minimize the barriers facing individuals who have difficulty finding work. Several
successful programs are described, including the Supported Work program and California's
Saturation Work Initiative Model (SWIM) and Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) programs.
Current programs which target hard-to-serve populations focus on activities such as part-time
employment, work experience development, volunteer work, working with job coaches, and
participating in specialized education activities, such as basic education or vocational
training. An appendix provides the work and participation provisions of 1996 PRWORA.
Doolittle, F. & Lynn, S. (1998, May). Introduction. In Working with low-income cases:
Lessons for the Child Support Enforcement system from Parents' Fair Share. New York: Manpower
Demonstration Research Corporation. This report discusses the Parents' Fair Share (PFS)
program's efforts to work more intensively with welfare-related caseloads and make the child
support system operate more smoothly and fairly for low-income divorced parents and their
children. This chapter introduces the PFS program and provides an overview of the report and
its findings. The PFS Demonstration was created by the Manpower Demonstration Research
Corporation (MDRC) in order to assist unemployed noncustodial parents (NCPs) of children
receiving welfare with paying child support, finding regular work, and parental involvement.
PFS provided NCPs with employment and training services, peer support groups, and mediation
designed to increase parental commitment and closeness with the children. Participants' child
support payments are reduced while they are in the program, but they are expected to find
work and begin paying regular support once they are employed. In an effort to better
understand the interactions between the seven PFS sites and low-income, unemployed NCPs, this
report examines the intake, review, and referral processes. Local child support enforcement
(CSE) staff reviewed their caseloads for potential referrals, and once appropriate cases were
identified, CSE staff called the NCPs in for in-person reviews of the case. If the NCPs did
not appear at the review, the CSE agencies attempted to locate them. For those who did come
to the reviews, the CSE was able to make decisions regarding whether PFS would be helpful for
some cases. Overall, the process allowed CSE staff to make the crucial separation between
NCPs who were unwilling to pay support and those who were unable to pay.
Doolittle, F., & Lynn, S. (1998, May). An overview of child support enforcement. In
Working with low-income cases: Lessons for the Child Support Enforcement system from Parents'
Fair Share. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. This chapter provides
an historical overview of child support enforcement and how it has affected low-income
parents. Historically, child support was considered a private matter, dealt with by state
courts only if the custodial parent sought legal action. There were no uniform standards by
which judges set awards, resulting in wide variation in the amounts awarded to people of
similar income and circumstances. It was common that children did not receive as much support
as their noncustodial parent could afford, which prompted a movement toward standardization,
increased enforcement, and funding from the federal government. The child support system also
became linked with the welfare system, requiring that mothers on welfare identify the fathers
of their children and the resulting payments would serve to pay back the government for
welfare transfers. The child support system has in recent years become very standardized,
with access to information on individuals and guidelines to determine award levels.
Enforcement has become stricter over the years and automatic withholding of wages and tax
intercepts have become common. The system, however, has developed in response to the
situations of middle class noncustodial parents (NCPs) and has largely not served the needs
of low-income NCPs who face barriers to employment and stability. NCPs who live at the
margins of society, who are often African American or Hispanic men facing racial
discrimination and hampered with histories of trouble with law enforcement, are often
difficult to locate and do not have the financial means to provide regular support. In
addition, many of these fathers distrust the CSE system and feel that it fails to take their
circumstances into account. It is this population that Parents' Fair Share (PFS) program
targets, hoping to encourage more cooperation with the child support system through education
and outreach.
Doolittle, F., & Lynn, S. (1998, May). An overview of the PFS intake process. In
Working with low-income cases: Lessons for the Child Support Enforcement system from Parents'
Fair Share. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. This chapter
discusses the intake process of the Parents' Fair Share (PFS) program and how program
eligibility is determined. There was some variation among the seven PFS sites in how they
approached the intake process. In three sites, for example, local child support enforcement
(CSE) staff chose a random sample of NCPs from their caseloads and reviewed each case,
located the NCP, and served him with a hearing notice for a case review. CSE staff then held
the review with the NCP, determined his current employment status and employability,
determined his current support order and payment status, and decided if his case was
appropriate for PFS referral. The greatest difficulties with this approach were locating the
NCP and getting them to attend the hearings. Successes included discovering previously
unreported employment or resources (though not all of these resulted in more child support
paid), and identification of appropriate cases for PFS referral. For these cases, many of the
NCPs faced serious barriers to employment and could be helped by PFS. Other issues that arose
at all of the sites included the appearance rate of NCPs, which varied widely according to
the nature of hearings, method of contacting, and local enforcement practices. Other issues
included "smokeout" of previously unreported employment, which was found in many of the
cases, and the rate of appropriateness for PFS, which varied sharply across the sites.
Doolittle, F., & Lynn, S. (1998, May). The steps in the enforcement process. In
Working with low-income cases: Lessons for the Child Support Enforcement system from Parents'
Fair Share. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. This chapter reviews
the steps in the enforcement process of the Parents' Fair Share (PFS) program, a program
designed to make the child support system more effective and fair for low-income parents and
their children. The first step in the enforcement process was to identify nonpaying
noncustodial parents (NCPs), using child support enforcement (CSE) staff, automated reports
of case status, and local and state enforcement priorities. Methods varied across the seven
PFS local CSE sites, but most had some method of reviewing cases in the caseloads or other
lists for potential referrals and developing a hearing procedure to review case status. The
next step was to arrange reviews of NCPs' status and eligibility for PFS. Several factors
affected the success of the reviews, such as perceived seriousness of the review, number of
available staff and docket space, and practices at the PFS sites. The next step was getting
NCPs to appear at the reviews, which depended on the method and extent of outreach. Another
issue was the difficulty of imposing sanctions for nonappearance, which was time consuming
and required law enforcement tactics. Contempt of court was rarely invoked across the site
because of these difficulties. The next step was the assessment of the NCPs' circumstances in
the review. Reviews took place usually in a courtroom setting. Findings included previously
unreported employment, current inability to work, living with the custodial parent, which all
affected eligibility for PFS. The next step was the referral of the eligible NCP for PFS.
Part of this step involved making downward modifications of the support obligation so that
the NCP would be better able to move into steady employment. Different sites made adjustments
in their local enforcement procedures in order to make PFS operate more smoothly, such as
redefining the pool of potential referrals and speeding up the hearing process.
Doolittle, F., & Lynn, S. (1998, May). Summary of lessons and policy implications. In
Working with low-income cases: Lessons for the Child Support Enforcement system from Parents'
Fair Share. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. This chapter
summarizes the initial efforts of the Parents' Fair Share (PFS) program as well as some
lessons and policy implications for making the child support system more effective and fair
for low-income parents and their children. The central issue to emerge from the PFS program
is that while there are many noncustodial parents (NCPs) who are unwilling to pay child
support, many are either unable to pay or should not be obligated to pay because of
circumstances in their lives that have changed. Since many low- income NCPs are difficult to
locate, it is difficult to determine which category they fall into. The PFS program was
designed to help locate and provide services to these families for whom the very standardized
child support system does not serve effectively. This report discussed the initial stages of
the program: identifying potential referrals, locating NCPs, gaining their cooperation and
dealing with the issue of sanctions as well as making the PFS message more clear, and the
overall issue of enhanced child support enforcement as a component of PFS. The PFS program
made low-income cases a priority despite the lack of potential payoff, and reduced its own
burden by working with CSE in implementing its programs. These efforts will prove to be more
and more invaluable as welfare reform causes more and more families to rely on parents'
income as they move off welfare to work. Future research from the PFS demonstration will
examine the long-term effectiveness of the program for increasing employment, earnings, and
child support of noncustodial parents.
Bardach, E. (1997). Implementing a paternalist welfare-to-work program. In L. M. Mead
(Ed.), The new paternalism: Supervisory approaches to poverty (pp. 248-278). Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution. This chapter focuses on some moral and practical dimensions of
implementing paternalist welfare-to-work programs. The issue of persuasion comes up when
discussing how to get welfare recipients into the labor market. The 1996 welfare reform bill
introduced time limits as a way to motivate recipients to move off welfare into work.
However, in order to keep recipients from falling into poverty, programs have to find ways to
help participants help themselves find and keep work. Paternalist program case managers try
to focus on recipients' personal goals as a motivator, while helping individuals obtain the
self-respect and self-confidence required for the work. This is difficult because many
welfare recipients have been out of work for long periods of time and are not confident about
working. Management strategies include the use of creativity for finding new services to
offer as well as for the intake process, which has become more streamlined in terms of
determining eligibility. In addition, managerial strategies that target the most
disadvantaged could be effective but are difficult in practice because of recipients' diverse
situations. Some programs contract out for certain services, which will become more and more
important as the new welfare legislation requires more job searching resources. The moral
aspects of reforming the welfare system are more complex than simply determining the
appropriate relationship between a welfare recipient and the labor force. Factors such as
childcare availability and the fact that welfare staff members can exercise state power over
recipients make the issue more complicated. For example, the use of sanctions should not be
used as a punishment but should be a tool to shape future behavior. Overall, leadership
responsibilities under a paternalist system should be distributed widely enough so they do
not appear as positions of leadership, as leadership positions are inappropriate for an
effective welfare system.
The above abstracts are from the National Center on Fathers and Families, FatherLit Database. For further information, visit the National Center on Fathers and Families web site.
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