There are several challenges to coordination that study sites encountered. Even successful coordination efforts had to overcome obstacles along the way. These challenges involve programmatic barriers, logistical barriers, and managerial barriers. An underlying factor in discussions of challenges to coordination is personality issues. Personality issues are often the difference between overcoming a barrier and finding that barrier to be insurmountable to coordination. These issues are present in many of the coordination efforts reviewed, including cases where strong positive leadership or longstanding friendships between agency directors are credited with successful coordination, and cases where individuals who are resistant to change or do not work well with other managers result in less successful coordination.
One challenge to coordination encountered in many sites is the difference in the philosophies that guide the welfare and workforce development agencies. In response to PRWORA, many welfare agencies have adopted a work-first approach, which supports the work participation and caseload reduction goals that the agencies must meet, and reduces the possibility that welfare clients will exceed the time limit for cash assistance. In other words, the focus is on getting a job quickly and minimizing time on TANF.
Workforce development agencies, on the other hand, have historically subscribed to the human capital investment approach, preferring to train clients for a better job rather than placing clients in a job with low wages and little advancement potential. While many workforce development specialists acknowledge the value of any work experience, even unpaid work experience, for someone who has never been in the workforce, they encourage clients to take every opportunity they can for training. One employment and training worker suggested that clients should use the time available on TANF to take advantage of WtW and other programs so that when they do get a job, it will be a better job and they will have the skills for continued employment and advancement, thus reducing the chance of ever needing welfare again.
Workforce development agencies in several locations noted a concern about the push to place TANF recipients who are not yet ready to work. Because of time limits, some respondents felt that TANF agencies are placing clients in the workforce before they are fully job ready. Some employment and training providers fear that this could harm relationships that they have developed over time with local employers.
Another issue is that agencies may be unable to agree on the nature of collaboration that they are implementing and the services to be provided by each agency. For example, agencies may disagree on what the one-stop should be--co-location, sharing staff, or a computer system that facilitates referrals and information sharing. They may also disagree on who should perform client assessments (and what that entails), or on how long clients should be engaged in TANF work activities before being referred to another agency for services.
Since many agencies are held accountable to performance standards, including the number of job placements, they may be reluctant to refer clients to another provider and lose the opportunity to get "credit," or count that client among their successes. Some performance-based contracts are structured so that agencies are only paid for job placements--that is, the agency does not get paid if the client is not placed in a job after completing the job readiness class. Agencies then have to work out the issue of who should pay for the class when a client completes the class, but is not able to obtain a job.
In June 1999, there were over 5.3 million fewer individuals on TANF than in August 1996, when PRWORA was enacted--a decline of 44 percent nationally.(6) In the states we visited, caseload declines ranged from 12 percent in Rhode Island to 65 percent in South Carolina. The decline in TANF has had three important effects related to coordination. First, the number of TANF clients in JTPA has declined due to a combination of declining TANF caseloads, TANF time limits, and work-first approaches. In 1994, AFDC recipients accounted for 35 percent of participants in JTPA adult programs (Nightingale 1997). The proportion of JTPA participants on TANF/AFDC fell to 32 percent in 1996 and 29 percent in 1997.(7) Second, there are fewer clients either eligible for or seeking work-related services from TANF agencies, workforce development agencies, community-based organizations, and others. Third, the decline in welfare caseloads enables caseworkers in some TANF offices to spend more time with each client.
In some sites, the caseload decline has reduced referrals and interactions between agencies. Some TANF caseworkers were less inclined to work with other agencies since they had the time to provide more services themselves. However, in other sites, because caseworkers had the opportunity to get to know individual clients better, they were more likely to identify additional services needed. This encouraged their coordination with other agencies in order to facilitate access to additional services for clients.
In several sites, coordinating agencies must contend with different geographical boundaries for their service areas. Some JTPA/WIA agencies, especially in rural areas, have large multi-county service areas and must work with several county welfare offices, each with its own local needs and personalities. For example, in Sedalia, Missouri the JTPA/WIA agency is serving TANF recipients from 13 different counties (an area that is 240 miles by 100 miles). In some communities physical barriers such as rivers and major highways, coupled with inadequate public transportation systems, preclude single service locations or impede coordination between agencies that are not in close proximity to each other.
Despite their willingness to co-locate, agencies may be reluctant to actually do so because of lease and other facility constraints. Many agencies either own their buildings or are committed to long term leases. In other cases, the space available for co-location may be too small to accommodate the needs of all potential partner agencies.
Concern about preserving client confidentiality often hinders agencies' ability to work together to resolve client-specific issues. It also makes it difficult to either store information or access other agencies' management information systems that are needed to verify program eligibility or participation in work activities. Several sites have addressed this issue by allowing access, but restricting certain data fields based on each agency's "need-to-know."
Programs have developed forms and paperwork specific to their individual needs. Often, this paperwork, and the management information systems that were developed from it, is not compatible with the forms and systems used by partner agencies. Respondents told us that even when they try to have as much common paperwork as possible, federal and state reporting requirements still vary considerably by agency.
Differing rules and personnel systems create barriers to integration between different government agencies and private organizations. Unions may object to integration of staff between agencies due to fears of job loss and problems resulting from workers being paid at different wage rates even though they are sitting next to each other and doing essentially the same work.
Perhaps one of the most common barriers is "turf" issues, including the fear of losing decision-making autonomy and distrust of other agency administrators or staff. Case managers, and other staff, may feel that their job security is jeopardized when other agencies are providing similar services to their clients. Agency staffing needs and responsibilities are changing. Examples include the reduced staffing requirements of ES offices due to telephone claims processing for unemployment insurance and automated access to job postings and labor market information, and the expanded role of welfare case managers beyond eligibility and benefits processing. These changes may affect the morale of workers and result in fewer client referrals to other agencies.
The availability of multiple resources has resulted in a proliferation of programs and access points, with many similar or overlapping services. Several different agencies and community based organizations within a single jurisdiction may be providing job readiness, family life skills, and job placement services. This causes confusion for clients, organizations, and staff as they try to sort through the process of moving from welfare to work, and may result in fewer referrals or in clients not following through on appointments.
Planning and maintaining service coordination takes a considerable amount of time and effort from staff at all levels. In several sites, staff from the welfare and workforce development agencies serve on inter-agency committees that were formed to address the collaborative effort. The time dedicated by staff to working on the collaborative is in addition to the other functions that they perform as part of their jobs. For example, in Charleston, three teams were created to guide the operations of the one-stop and all decision making is done by consensus in an effort to promote a team-building atmosphere. In Portland, the establishment of one-stop career centers involved a long planning process. Respondents indicated that a considerable amount of time and effort was put into overcoming turf issues among local organizations. Several sites mentioned the time-consuming nature of developing procedures for WtW referrals and documentation of participation in a work activity when the activity was provided by an agency other than the TANF agency.
In summary, all sites encountered programmatic, logistical, and/or managerial barriers to coordination. Sites varied in their approaches to these challenges and in the extent to which the barriers were overcome.
6. http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/stats/aug-sept.htm [return to text]
7. 1996 JTPA Standard Program Information Report (SPIR) and 1997 JTPA Standard Program Information Report (SPIR), U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. [return to text]
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Main Page of Report
Table of Contents:
Executive Summary
Introduction
Coordination and Service Delivery
Factors that Promote Coordination
Challenges to Coordination
Conclusions
Appendix A: Literature Review
Appendix B: Methodology and Site Selection
Appendix C: Summary of Agencies Providing Work-Related
Services
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