[ Main Page of Report | Contents of Report ]
PRWORA, the 1996 federal legislation that authorized TANF, requires parents or caretakers (with some exceptions) to engage in work within twenty-four months of receiving assistance and gives states the flexibility to establish shorter work requirements, which most have done.(20) Programs funded by WtW grants were expected to complement this "work first" emphasis by providing hard-to-employ TANF recipients and others at risk of long-term welfare dependency primarily with employment preparation services.(21) These services either help individuals overcome barriers that prevent them from securing employment or facilitate their progress in doing so. They typically address specific problems and are of short duration. In contrast, skill enhancement services help individuals qualify for better jobs than they otherwise would. These services, often referred to as "education and training," are designed to broadly increase human capital and may be of longer duration. The BBA restricted the provision of skill enhancement services funded by WtW grants to the post-employment period.(22) However, the 1999 amendments expanded the list of allowable pre-employment services to include education and training, but capped the duration of these services at six months.(23)
A 2002 report on the implementation of the WtW grants program, prepared under this evaluation, gives an in-depth description of the services provided by local programs (Nightingale et al. 2002). That description is based on data extracted from program administrative files and on information gathered through on-site observations of program operations, reviews of written policies, and interviews with program staff.
For the current analysis, we used WtW enrollees' self-reports of the services that they received during the year following their entry into the program, as gathered in this evaluation's 12-month follow-up survey. This methodology is limited by that fact that the survey respondents may not have known whether the services that they received were delivered by WtW-funded providers or other organizations. Thus, while we can use the survey data to richly document the receipt of services by WtW enrollees, we cannot be certain whether they were provided under the auspices of the WtW program. However, the types of services reported by the survey respondents are broadly consistent with the findings by Nightingale et al. (2002) on the services provided by the WtW grant-funded programs in the study sites. Consequently, we believe that WtW-funded providers did in fact deliver many, or even most, of the services that WtW enrollees reported receiving.
Section A of this chapter documents the receipt by WtW enrollees of the shorter-term and more narrowly focused employment preparation services that were expected to be central to WtW-funded programs. Section B describes enrollees' receipt of skill enhancement services. The chapter concludes with a classification of the 11 sites that participated in this evaluation, based on the services received by enrollees in those sites.
[Go To Contents]
Most WtW enrollees in the 11 study sites received employment preparation services sometime during the year following program entry. These diverse services included job readiness training, job search assistance, substance abuse treatment, and seven additional services measured in this evaluation.(24) The rate of receipt of any of these services was generally high and did not vary dramatically across the sites — ranging from a low of 68 percent in Ft. Worth to a high of 89 percent in Philadelphia (Exhibit III.1).
The generally high rates of receipt of employment preparation services indicate that the programs in the study sites were largely successful in delivering at least some assistance to each enrollee. Nevertheless, there was variation across the sites in the rate of service receipt, which appears related to differences in the design of the WtW enrollment process. In general, the closer the proximity of the place of enrollment to the place of service delivery, the higher the rate of service receipt.
Ft. Worth and Philadelphia — the sites where enrollees had the lowest and highest rates of receipt of employment preparation services, respectively — illustrate this principle. In Ft. Worth, many individuals were enrolled in WtW during the TANF application and assessment process, typically at one of eight county-operated career centers rather than at a WtW service provider. This enrollment design carried a significant risk that enrollees who were referred to a WtW provider would fail to show, and therefore receive no WtW services. In contrast, enrollment in the WtW program operated by the Transitional Work Corporation (TWC) in Philadelphia occurred at a service provider — either at TWC itself or at any of eight Regional Service Centers, which were also WtW service providers. The Regional Service Centers referred appropriate clients to TWC and also may have provided them with services. This design for WtW enrollment minimized the risk that no-shows would depress the rate of service receipt by enrollees in the program.
The prototypical design for employment preparation services in a WtW program calls for teaching fundamental on-the-job behavior skills (job readiness training), followed by the provision of job search/placement services. The latter includes resume preparation, interview practice, and assistance in finding a job. These core services may be complemented by ancillary services that address specific problems or barriers to work, such as a substance abuse problem. Ancillary services may also include the provision of continuing support to enrollees who have achieved employment.
Most of the sites that participated in this evaluation conformed fairly closely to the prototypical design. The sites that deviated most sharply from it were Baltimore County and St. Lucie County (the two JHU sites), Nashville, and Milwaukee. The distinctive features of the WtW program designs in these four sites are highlighted later in this section.
During the year following program entry, the employment preparation assistance most frequently received by WtW enrollees in all of the 11 study sites were core services: job readiness training and job search/placement services. Job readiness training was received by more than half of the WtW enrollees in seven of the study sites and by about four in ten enrollees in the remaining sites (Exhibit III.2). Job search/placement services were equally common, with a very similar pattern of receipt across the study sites. Enrollees in Philadelphia were most likely to receive job readiness training and job search/placement services, while enrollees in Ft. Worth were least likely to receive them.
Fewer enrollees received ancillary services. The most common of these were life skills training, received by 25 to 50 percent of enrollees (Appendix Exhibit B.1), and counseling, received by roughly 20 to 40 percent of enrollees (Exhibit III.2). The remaining ancillary services — including mediation and substance abuse treatment — were generally received by no more than 15 percent of enrollees in a site. The exceptions to this pattern tend to be in the four sites where the WtW programs deviated most sharply from the prototypical design.
The distinctive nature of the Johns Hopkins University program model is revealed in the patterns of service receipt displayed in Exhibit III.2. The JHU model emphasizes job retention, skills development, and job advancement among employed individuals. Consistent with that model, WtW enrollees in the Baltimore County and St. Lucie County JHU sites received job readiness training and job search/placement services at lower rates than did enrollees in most of the other study sites but had higher rates of receipt of counseling and mediation services.(25)
The Nashville Works/Pathways program was based on the Project Match model, which emphasizes a holistic, human development approach to helping people move toward employment. This model specifies the provision of intensive case management, problem-solving assistance, and a broad range of other services in a supportive peer-group environment. Accordingly, the Nashville enrollees were more likely to have received counseling, structured peer support, mediation services, and mental health services than those in most of the other study sites.
Milwaukee's NOW program serves noncustodial parents who are on probation or parole or who are about to be released from prison. Although this program has a strong work-first emphasis in principle, the rates at which enrollees received the core employment preparation services were lower in Milwaukee than in all of the other study sites except Ft. Worth. On the other hand, NOW enrollees had relatively high rates of receipt of counseling and of ancillary services that were rarely received by WtW enrollees in other sites — including participation in peer support groups, legal assistance, and substance abuse treatment. This distinctive set of employment preparation services is consistent with the needs of the unusual population (for WtW programs) served by the program.
A WtW program following the prototypical design for employment preparation services would provide several weeks of job readiness training followed by a week or so of job search/placement assistance. But even programs in the evaluation that were broadly consistent with the prototypical design tended to modify it in significant ways. For example, programs in some of the study sites reflect a philosophy that employment outcomes for the individuals they serve can be optimized by the provision of extended job readiness training prior to job search or placement. Conversely, job readiness training is downplayed in some other programs that target individuals who have already demonstrated their employability.
The duration of job readiness training was quite varied across the study sites, with the median number of days of training among enrollees who received it ranging from 6 in Ft. Worth and St. Lucie County and 8 in Baltimore County to 44 in Boston and Philadelphia (Exhibit III.3). The short duration of job readiness training in St. Lucie and Baltimore counties reflects the fact that the JHU program was designed primarily to assist employed persons in achieving greater success in the labor market. In Ft. Worth, the short duration of such training is consistent with the emphasis on rapid transition to employment in that site's program design. However, when viewed in light of relatively poor employment outcomes for Ft. Worth enrollees, documented in the next chapter, the short duration of job readiness training may also be symptomatic of lapses in the delivery of services to those who needed them.(26)
The median duration of job readiness training was highest in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and West Virginia, consistent with the designs for these WtW programs, which specify the provision of extended job readiness training to all or to major segments of enrollees. For example, the design for the program operated by the Human Resource Development Foundation in West Virginia calls for all enrollees to participate in a four-week job readiness workshop prior to job placement. Exhibit III.3 shows that the median WtW enrollee in the West Virginia study site received 24 days of job readiness training. The program in Boston was based on two different designs, one of which entailed the provision of extensive training by major employers in the Boston area to prepare enrollees for jobs with those organizations. Enrollees in Boston received a median of 44 days of job readiness training.
The design and execution of job search/placement services was more consistent across sites, with much lower and less varied durations than job readiness training (Exhibit III.3). The median duration of job search/placement services was just 4 days or less in seven of the sites, and exceeded 10 days only in Boston.
The duration of ancillary services depended on their nature, the severity and complexity of the problems they were designed to address, and on the capacity of the enrollees to persist in the treatment. WtW enrollees typically received counseling, mediation, and legal services for short durations. The median duration of each of these services among those who received them in all of the study sites was 10 days or less for counseling and 4 days or less for mediation and legal services. In contrast, enrollees often received mental health services and substance abuse treatment for long durations. For example, WtW enrollees in Baltimore County and Boston who entered substance abuse treatment programs typically received services from those programs for about 100 days.
WtW enrollees who received job readiness training and job search/placement services generally judged them to be useful, regardless of the study site. The perceived utility of the ancillary services tended to be lower and more varied across the sites.
The programs studied in this evaluation delivered core employment preparation services that were consistently judged to be useful by the enrollees who received them. On a scale ranging from 1 (not useful at all) to 3 (very useful), the mean values of indices of the usefulness of job readiness training and job search/placement services fall within bands that are both high and narrow, ranging from 2.4 to 2.7 (Appendix Exhibit B.3).(27)
Although assessments were less consistent across sites, enrollees generally held ancillary services in lower regard than the core services. The ancillary services that enrollees judged to be most useful were life skills training, counseling, peer support or discussion groups, and mediation services. Mediation services were viewed as being especially useful, with mean index values reaching 2.7 in Nashville and Philadelphia and 2.8 in Phoenix and St. Lucie County (Appendix Exhibit B.3). Enrollees viewed mental health services, legal assistance, and substance abuse treatment less favorably. They viewed legal assistance least favorably; the mean index value for that service was less than 2.0 in seven of the study sites.
[Go To Contents]
WtW enrollees in the 11 study sites were only about half as likely to receive skill enhancement services during the year following enrollment in WtW as they were to receive the employment preparation services discussed in the previous section. Rates of participation in education and training ranged from 24 to 47 percent across the study sites (Exhibit III.4). Only in three sites did participation rates exceed 40 percent: Baltimore County, Nashville, and St. Lucie County. This is consistent with the focus of the programs operating in these sites. In Baltimore and St. Lucie counties, the JHU program aims to help already-employed participants move into better jobs. The Nashville program emphasizes human development and operates under Tennessee's federal TANF waiver that expanded the allowable services to permit a broader set of activities to satisfy work requirements.
The WtW enrollees who received skill enhancement services almost always received them in conjunction with employment preparation services, rather than by themselves. The Boston study site typifies this pattern; about nine of every ten enrollees in that site who received skill enhancement services also received employment preparation services (Appendix Exhibit B.27). This ratio was lowest in Baltimore County, but even there, three-fourths of recipients of skill enhancement services also received employment preparation services. In contrast, WtW enrollees typically received employment preparation services by themselves. Only between one-fourth and one-half of recipients of employment preparation services also received skill enhancement services. Thus, while skill enhancement services were rarely received on a stand-alone basis, employment preparation services usually were.
Rates of receipt of specific types of skill enhancement services did not exceed 20 percent other than for a few exceptional services in Baltimore County, Milwaukee, Nashville, and St. Lucie County (Exhibit III.5). These rates are well below those for the core employment preparation services but are comparable to those for some of the less common ancillary employment preparation services, such as mediation and mental health services. About 10 to 20 percent of WtW enrollees participated in GED/high school programs and in advanced education programs,(28) while 5 to 10 percent participated in adult basic education (ABE). Virtually no enrollees in any site other than Boston participated in English as a second language (ESL) programs; restrictions on the receipt of TANF by recent immigrants may have limited the number of WtW enrollees who could benefit from this instruction.
Milwaukee/NOW and Nashville Works/Pathways enrollees were most likely to participate in GED or high school programs, whereas enrollees in the two JHU programs were most likely to participate in college and other advanced education programs (Exhibit III.5). Enrollees in the Nashville site also had relatively high rates of participation in ABE and in advanced programs.
The skill enhancement services received by WtW enrollees typically lasted for two to six months and entailed a commitment of 10 to 20 hours per week (Exhibit III.6). Thus, receipt of these services represented a substantially larger investment in human capital than did receipt of employment preparation services. Enrollees in the Milwaukee/NOW program who participated in GED or high school education programs did so for 12 hours per week for five months, on average. Their counterparts in Nashville were even more intensively engaged in these programs, averaging 12 hours of participation per week for five months. Enrollees in the Baltimore County and St. Lucie County JHU programs who participated in advanced education programs did so for roughly 15 hours per week over an interval of three to four months, on average.
The 1997 legislation that initially authorized the WtW grants program permitted skill enhancement services to be provided to enrollees only after they had obtained jobs.(29)Subsequent amendments to that legislation in 1999 eased this restriction by allowing such services prior to employment for a maximum of six months. Still, it is clear that federal policymakers intended for most investment in human capital under WtW grant-funded programs to occur after, rather than before, an enrollee obtained employment.(30) We used data from the evaluation's 12-month follow-up survey to investigate whether enrollees' participation in employment and training programs was consistent with the spirit of the legislation in this regard.
Receipt of skill enhancement services following, rather than preceding, employment was the exception rather than the rule for WtW enrollees. Exhibit III.7 shows that in most of the study sites, only between one-fourth and one-half of enrollees who received basic skill enhancement services began doing so after they had become employed. The results are a bit more favorable for advanced services — about 30 to 60 percent of the enrollees who participated in vocational or technical training, occupational skills training, or college programs did so after obtaining jobs.
Three of the study sites deviated notably from the general pattern. In Baltimore County and St. Lucie County, about 75 percent of WtW enrollees who participated in basic education and training programs and approximately 85 percent of those who participated in advanced programs did so after becoming employed (Exhibit III.7). The corresponding rates in Yakima were about 10 percentage points lower than in the JHU sites, but they were nevertheless high relative to the rates in the other eight sites.
[Go To Contents]
This evaluation's implementation report (Nightingale et al. 2002) uses three program models to classify the study sites, based on the key service-delivery features and on those aspects of the programs that administrators and staff highlighted as being their most prominent or defining features.(31) We thought it would be useful to provide in this outcomes report an alternative classification of the study sites based on the self-reports of services received by the WtW enrollees and then compare the results of the two classification schemes. Using the enrollee reports, our five-way classification of the 11 study sites is as follows:
While somewhat subjective, our sense is that the program category Rapid Job Entry, based on enrollee reports, maps into the Enhanced Direct Employment (EDE) program model. The shaded cell in the top left of Exhibit III.8 designates this mapping. In a similar fashion, the Extensive Pre-Employment Services and Rehabilitative program categories map into the Developmental/Transitional Employment (DTE) model, as indicated by the two shaded cells in the middle of the exhibit. The Career Advancement program category maps cleanly into the Intensive Post-Employment Skills Development (IPESD) model, as indicated by the shaded cell in the lower right of Exhibit III.8. The Minimal Services program category is not consistent with any of the three program models.
The program classification based on enrollee reports is consistent with the program model based on administrator and staff reports for 8 of the 11 study sites. The three sites for which these are inconsistent are West Virginia, Milwaukee, and Ft. Worth. The lengthy job readiness training received by enrollees in West Virginia, combined with their protracted time until the first job, led us to classify this as an Extensive Pre-Employment Services site, which is consistent with the DTE model rather than EDE model. Low rates of receipt of job readiness training and job placement services by WtW enrollees in Milwaukee, combined with their high rates of receipt of ancillary employment preparation services, led us to classify this as a Rehabilitative site, which is consistent with the DTE model rather than the EDE model. Finally, low rates of receipt of any services by enrollees in Ft. Worth, combined with relatively poor employment outcomes, led us to classify this site as Minimal Services — a classification that is not consistent with any of the three program models.(33)
Exhibit III.1
Percentage of WtW Enrollees Who Received Any Employment Preparation Services
During the Year after Program Entry
Exhibit III.2
Percentages of WtW Enrollees Who Received Specific Types of Employment
Preparation Services
During the Year after Program Entry
Exhibit III.3
Duration of Employment Preparation Services Received
by WtW Enrollees During the Year after Program Entry (Median days of
receipt by rnrollees who received services)
Exhibit III.4
Percentage of WtW Enrollees Who Received Any Skill Enhancement Services
(Education and Training)
During the Year after Program Entry
Exhibit III.5
Percentages of WtW Enrollees Who Received Specific Types of Skill Enhancement
Services
During the Year after Program Entry
Exhibit III.6
Duration and Intensity of Skill Enhancement Services Received
by WtW Enrollees During the Year after Program Entry
Exhibit III.7
Percentages of WtW Enrollees for Whom the Receipt of Skill Enhancement
Services
Commenced on or Following Initial Employment
| Program Classification (based on enrollee reports of services received) |
Program Model (based on administrator and staff reports of key program features) |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Enhanced Direct Employment | Developmental/ Transitional Employment | Intensive Post-Employment Skills Development | |
| Rapid Job Entry | Phoenix, Yakima | ||
| Extensive Pre-Employment Services | West Virginia | Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Philadelphia | |
| Rehabilitative | Milwaukee | ||
| Career Advancement | Baltimore Co., St. Lucie Co. | ||
| Minimal Services | Ft. Worth | ||
| Note: Shaded cells indicate consistency between the program classification based on enrollee reports and the program model based on administrator and staff reports. Study sites whose names appear outside of the shaded cells (West Virginia, Milwaukee, and Ft. Worth) are ones where the program classification based on enrollee reports and the program model based on administrator/staff reports appear to be inconsistent. | |||
[Go To Contents]
20. The National Governor's Association reported that twenty-eight states submitted TANF plans to DHHS which indicate that they require at least some recipients to work before the end of the twenty-fourth month on assistance (NGA 1999).
21. The interim rule for the WtW grants states that, "Activities conducted with WtW funds must be grounded in the 'work first' philosophy which is a fundamental tenet of the Act (PRWORA). Although a variety of activities are authorized under WtW, these activities should be viewed as employment-based developmental steps for helping individuals secure and retain unsubsidized employment." (DOL 1997, pages 61593-61594)
22. DOL (1997, page 61594) states, "While the legislation (PL 105-33, 1997) does not permit stand-alone training activities independent of a job, allowing them as post-employment activities only while the participant is working in a subsidized or unsubsidized job reflects the basic 'work first' thrust of the legislation."
23. Public Law 106-113 (1999).
24. The evaluation's 12-month follow-up survey inquired about the receipt of each of ten services: (1) job readiness training, (2) job search or placement, (3) life-skills classes, (4) mental health services, (5) substance abuse treatment, (6) medical attention to correct a work-limiting physical condition, (7) legal assistance, (8) counseling, (9) peer support/discussion group, and (10) mediation services. Longer-run education and training programs are not included in this discussion of services, but rather are addressed in Section B.
25. Referral to education and training programs is also a distinctive feature of the JHU program design. Evidence presented later in this chapter documents that WtW enrollees in Baltimore County and St. Lucie County were more likely to have participated in education and training programs than enrollees in most of the other study sites.
26. Among the 11 study sites, Ft. Worth had the lowest rate of receipt of any employment preparation services by WtW enrollees (Exhibit III.1). It is also last or next-to-last among the sites in the duration of core employment preparation services — job readiness training and job search/placement services — by enrollees who received those services (Exhibit III.3). Chapter IV presents evidence that employment outcomes for WtW enrollees in Ft. Worth were relatively poor. Ft. Worth is among the three study sites with the lowest percentage of enrollees who were employed at any time during the year following enrollment (Exhibit IV.1) and among the three sites with the longest elapsed time until the first post-enrollment job (Exhibit IV.2).
27. In the evaluation's 12-month follow-up survey, enrollees who reported having received a specific employment preparation service were asked whether it had been useful to them. Their responses of 1 (not useful at all), 2 (somewhat useful), and 3 (very useful) were incorporated in an index of the usefulness of each service.
28. The 12-month follow-up survey gathered information on participation in the following advanced education and training programs: vocational or technical training, occupational skills training, and college programs.
29. In its interim rule on WtW, DOL (1997, page 61549) states that, "The regulations . . . encourage the use of training interventions only after an individual begins to work to help participants retain their jobs and move toward self-sufficiency."
30. This interpretation of the intent of federal policymakers is consistent with DOL's final rule for the WtW grants program (DOL 2001, page 2715, Sect. 645.220, paragraphs b and e).
31. On page 67, Nightingale et al. (2002) identify three WtW program models based on service delivery features and on administrator and staff descriptions of their programs: (1) Enhanced Direct Employment, with an emphasis on providing individualized support and counseling prior to employment, job placement services, and post employment services; (2) Developmental/Transitional Employment, with an emphasis on skills development, transitional or subsidized employment, and job placement; (3) Intensive Post-Employment Skills Development, with a primary objective of improving job retention and specific occupational skills for employed individuals.
32. The West Virginia site does not fit cleanly into the extensive pre-employment services category on the basis of the pattern of service receipt alone. The median duration of job readiness training for WtW enrollees in this study site, 24 days (Exhibit III.3), exceeds the median durations for the rapid job entry sites but is less than those in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Our decision to classify the West Virginia site in the extensive pre-employment services category was influenced by the finding, discussed in Chapter IV, that the mean duration until the first job was markedly high for enrollees in this site (refer to Exhibit IV.2).
33. Possible explanations for the three sites that are flagged as inconsistencies between the two classification schemes include: (1) deviation of a program as initially implemented from the program design; (2) evolution of a program between the time when data were collected for the evaluation's process study and the fielding period for the 12-month follow-up survey of enrollees; (3) subjective factors underlying the interpretation of data by the two largely different research teams for the implementation study and the outcomes study.
Main Page of Report | Contents of Report
Home Pages:
Human Services Policy
(HSP)
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
(ASPE)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS)