For the last several years, states and localities have been making policy, programmatic and service delivery changes to shift to a more work-oriented assistance system. Based on the experiences of the 20 sites included in this study, intermediaries clearly are important players in this transition. Most local welfare offices, at a minimum, have transferred responsibility for teaching TANF clients how to find employment and linking them with employers who have job openings to intermediaries. In a surprising number of local sites, intermediaries also have broader case management responsibilities including assessing TANF clients' needs and helping them to develop and implement a plan for achieving self-sufficiency.
This research was designed to be exploratory in nature. Thus, it represents a first step in trying to understand what organizations are acting as intermediaries and the role they play in linking welfare recipients with jobs. The variation in how the local sites have defined the roles and responsibilities of intermediaries is quite striking. This suggests that if we had selected more sites or 20 different sites we might have uncovered even more models of using intermediaries. With this in mind, in this chapter we discuss the challenges the intermediaries in the study sites encountered and present broad lessons that can be gleaned from the study sites' experiences. We conclude with suggestions for ways in which our understanding of the role intermediaries are playing in linking welfare recipients with jobs might be enhanced.
In the local sites, some intermediaries are new to serving welfare recipients or providing employment services. Thus, they face all of the implementation challenges that any new organization faces — hiring and training staff and defining how they will provide the services they have agreed to provide. Established organizations have had to adjust their services to respond to the more work-oriented focus of the welfare system; for many, the primary adjustment they have had to make is decreasing the amount of time they have to prepare TANF recipients for employment. Regardless of whether organizations are new or established, many have faced similar implementation challenges, especially those related to receiving referrals and establishing effective communication systems.
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1. Intermediaries are operating in a new and changing environment where the flow of clients is rarely steady and predictable. Declining TANF caseloads, dual structures for providing employment services for TANF recipients and high no-show rates among TANF recipients all contribute to the uncertainties that intermediaries face in predicting the number of clients they will serve.
When intermediaries enter into a formal agreement with the welfare office or their designee, they do so with the expectation that they will serve a specified number of clients. However, in a rapidly changing environment, it has been difficult to accurately predict how many TANF recipients will need to be served by intermediaries. In some of the urban sites, intermediaries are serving more clients than they anticipated serving. In the sites with the largest caseload declines, intermediaries are serving far fewer TANF clients than they anticipated serving. As a result, many intermediaries' contracts have been modified and discussions are beginning about how the money available for TANF employment services can be used differently. In one of the rural sites, the primary intermediary receives so few referrals for its job search services that the program is no longer self-supporting and is maintained only as a community service.
Intermediaries operating outside of the primary TANF employment program face special difficulties reaching the number of TANF clients they plan to serve. Because most TANF clients are expected to find employment as quickly as possible, it is often difficult for them to participate in programs that are outside of the primary TANF employment structure. Consequently, WtW programs in localities where the TANF employment and WtW programs are managed by separate entities have had an especially difficult time recruiting clients to participate in their programs. Restrictive eligibility criteria contribute to some of the problems faced by WtW intermediaries, however, in communities where the WtW program is not fully integrated into the TANF employment program, enrollment problems are likely to remain even when the pool of eligible participants is broadened.
Even when intermediaries receive sufficient referrals, they have had to account for extremely high levels of non-participation. Intermediaries report that they generally can expect only about half of the clients referred to them to participate in the program. High no-show rates reduce the number of clients an intermediary can serve and create a huge paperwork burden since clients who do not show up for services are usually referred back to the welfare office for sanctioning. In an effort to reduce the number of clients who do not participate in their programs, a few intermediaries have put outreach activities into place. Outreach activities include calling the client the day before they are scheduled to begin participation and sending follow-up reminder cards. Other outreach activities are more intensive and may include conducting home visits to clients.
2. As caseloads decline, there is a growing concern among intermediaries that there is a mismatch between the limited services they are being asked to provide and the needs of the clients they are being asked to serve.
As TANF caseloads decline, many intermediaries feel they are working with more clients with multiple barriers to employment. Most intermediaries believe they could do a better job of serving these families if they had more time to work with clients and could provide a broader range of services. Over time, it is possible there will be less demand for the short-term job search and placement programs currently in place and more demand for longer-term supported work programs. Given the more specialized knowledge needed to address the needs of families with chronic barriers to employment, it is possible that a new set of intermediaries will be called upon to provide these services. Alternatively, existing intermediaries might begin to collaborate more with organizations that are better equipped to provide these services.
3. Intermediaries often are asked to collect and manage large amounts of information on individual clients with limited automated support.
It has been a challenge for most of the sites to establish clear procedures for transferring client information back and forth between multiple agencies. The more agencies involved in the referral and service delivery process, the more difficult it is to establish efficient methods of communication. Most state or local automated data collection systems were not designed to support the complex interactions between the welfare office, the workforce development system and intermediaries. Consequently, many localities have had to rely on manual tracking systems. It is an ongoing challenge to develop and maintain a system of communication that provides all involved parties with the information they need and is not overly burdensome on front line staff.
1. There are a variety of ways to transfer employment-related responsibilities to intermediaries. Given that localities have different resources, needs and priorities, a service delivery structure that works in one locality may not necessarily work in another.
The local sites examined for this study transferred responsibility to intermediaries in a number of different ways. The decisions they made reflected differences in their in-house resources, administrative structure, prior experience with intermediaries and perceptions of the relative effectiveness of government and the private sector. Based on their early experience, there is no evidence to suggest that one particular strategy for transferring responsibilities to intermediaries will produce better results than another. Instead, what appears to matter is creating an infrastructure that builds on the strengths of the local community.
It is also important to note that the decisions one makes regarding how much responsibility to transfer to intermediaries can impact the kinds of organizations that are qualified to function as an intermediary. In particular, when responsibilities are broadly defined and the number of clients to be served is large, non-profit organizations may be less likely than large for-profit organizations with a national infrastructure to act as an intermediary.
2. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities and ongoing communication are critical to the implementation of the intermediary function.
Intermediaries are operating in a complex policy and administrative environment. Regardless of how TANF is administered and how much responsibility is transferred to intermediaries, the process of linking welfare recipients with jobs is a shared responsibility. Welfare office staff remain responsible for referring clients to intermediaries, imposing sanctions on clients who do not participate in work-related activities and authorizing work supports such as food stamps and Medicaid when clients are no longer eligible for cash assistance. When the welfare office and the workforce development system are both involved in the administration of TANF or providing employment-related services to TANF recipients, clearly defined roles and responsibilities and clear procedures for transferring information between agencies are even more critical.
This study has provided one of the first examinations of the role intermediaries are playing in helping welfare recipients find employment. Clearly, intermediaries are an important part of a complex array of actors that are attempting to help welfare recipients find and maintain stable employment. Therefore, their ability to link welfare recipients with jobs may substantially influence the overall success of a localities' efforts to reform the welfare system. Especially over the long-term, it would broaden our understanding of welfare reform if we explored the role of intermediaries in further detail.
1. The implementation of welfare reform cannot be fully understood without taking into account the role intermediaries play in linking welfare recipients with jobs.
Understanding the implementation of welfare reform is an extremely complex undertaking. Because many implementation decisions are being made at the local level, the focal point for many implementation studies is the local welfare office. This study suggests that, in some communities, the scope of inquiry may need to expand beyond the welfare office. This is especially true for the analysis of implementation issues that involve significant worker-client interaction such as assessment practices, the implementation of sanction policies and efforts to link clients with ongoing work supports such as food stamps and Medicaid. While we often think of these tasks within the purview of welfare office staff, it is clear that intermediaries have an important role to play in making sure that clients are aware of what is expected of them and the benefits to which they are entitled.
2. Currently, there is no conclusive evidence on whether intermediaries with certain characteristics perform better than others. Investing in research to examine this question could potentially help local welfare offices to develop more effective TANF employment service delivery systems.
In the current environment many intermediaries are being asked to provide the same set of services to welfare recipients. However, intermediaries differ on a number of dimensions that may influence their performance. Key characteristics that may influence performance include: (1) the number of clients served; (2) previous history of providing employment-related services; (3) expertise serving hard-to-employ populations; (4) payment mechanism; (5) payment amount; (6) type of organization; (7) links to the business community; and (8) the administrative structure in which the intermediary is operating.
3. Work first programs, consisting primarily of job search and placement assistance are at the heart of most current efforts to increase employment among welfare recipients. As these programs become more established, it would be useful to know whether one work first approach is more effective than another.
Job search assistance is the core service provided by most primary intermediaries. While these programs are similar in many ways, often there are subtle differences. Some of the dimensions on which these programs vary include: (1) length of the program; (2) amount of structure; (3) level of employer involvement; (4) extent to which life skills issues are addressed; and (5) length and extent of follow-up. Currently, there is no information available to indicate whether different approaches to providing job search have any influence on program outcomes. Additional information on what makes a "good" job search program may help to improve the overall quality of job search programs.
In many communities, intermediaries provide the primary link between welfare recipients and the paid labor market. While a service delivery system that effectively links the welfare office, the workforce development system and intermediaries is in place in some communities, in others, an integrated service delivery system is still being created. Given the changing nature of the TANF caseload and shifting priorities, the system for providing employment-related services to TANF clients is likely to be in transition for some time. Over the next several years, states and localities will be implementing the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) which may encourage some local communities to again rethink how they transfer responsibility to intermediaries. Examining how these transitions take place and how they affect the role intermediaries play in linking welfare recipients with jobs will help to broaden our knowledge of what it takes to create a stable work-based assistance system.
Top of Page
Contents of This Section
Table of Contents of Report
Executive Summary
Introduction
Defining the Roles and Responsibilities of
Intermediaries
Implementation of the “Intermediary”
Function
Lessons Learned and Next Steps
Appendix A: Site Descriptions
Appendix B: Examples of Organizations Functioning
as Intermediaries
Appendix C: Number of Intermediaries by Type of
Organization
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Last updated 06/01/00