Welfare-to Work: What's Working?
Where Do We Go From Here?

I. Message from john powell and Leonard Witt

March 31, 1999

On Oct. 2, 1998, Minnesota Public Radio's Civic Journalism Initiative and the Institute on Race & Poverty at the University of Minnesota Law School invited over 120 stakeholders in Minnesota to the Sabathani Community Center in Minneapolis to evaluate the Minnesota Family Investment Plan (MFIP). At the summit, entitled "Welfare to Work: How Are We Doing? Where Do We Go From Here? What's Working, What's Not and Why?" conference participants identified MFIP's successes and failures.

In this brief report, you'll find a summary of both issues raised: "What's Working, What's Not and Why?" as well as recommendations for: "Where Do We Go From Here?" Conference attendees recommended developing an overarching framework for welfare to work. They said we need a mission statement for the families affected, recognizing that what is at stake is far more important than just getting more women into the workforce. It must embrace the goal of self-sufficiency, as well as the mental and physical health and security of the families affected. In addition, a strategy must be crafted to address the needs of the hard-to-employ: immigrants, the chemically dependent, the unmotivated and the mentally ill. More training is required to meet the needs not only of participants but employers who desperately need these new employees, but lack understanding the issues involved in employing adults with little work experience and challenging home lives.

We cannot shy away from cultural diversity and systemic racism. Minorities are having a harder time getting off welfare than whites. Special challenges faced by minorities must be addressed if welfare to work is going to be successful for everyone. Lastly, we must continue to educate the public about issues participants face and work to change the vision from merely "welfare to work" to a more encompassing vision of "economic growth and community stability," which offers a win/win opportunity for everyone.

At our Summit there were several women who were on or had recently gotten off welfare and who had important things to say, as well as important questions to be addressed. They generously contributed their energy, ideas and experiences, but were frustrated that not much has changed as a result of their participation in the public dialogue.

Since the Summit, MPR ran a week-long series on welfare reform; excerpts from the series can be found on the station's Web site at www.mpr.org by clicking on the "Civic Journalism Initiative" prompt. A panel of Summit participants also shared results with the National Association of Counties at its annual meeting last fall in the Twin Cities. A similar panel presented summit findings at a Minnesota Senate Subcommittee on Family Health and Security meeting in December. We hope to keep the work of the Summit participants alive through additional presentations and the publication of this report, which is available by calling the Institute on Race & Poverty at 612-625-8071 and via the Web at www.umn.edu/irp. It is also posted on MPR's Web site.

john a. powell, executive director Leonard Witt, executive director
Institute on Race & Poverty MPR's Civic Journalism Initiative

II. Overview of MFIP

First implemented as a pilot program in 1995, the Minnesota Family Investment Program was designed to reform welfare in Minnesota in an effort to encourage recipients to work, assist working families in leaving poverty, and reduce dependence on welfare. In 1996, the federal legislature passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) which block-granted federal welfare funds and devolved responsibility for implementing welfare reform to the states with certain restrictions. As a result, on January 1, 1998, Minnesota adopted MFIP statewide and pursued four strategies to achieve MFIP's goals.

• First, Minnesota enhanced its financial incentives package, which now permits families to receive some of their welfare benefits until their income is 40% above the poverty line.
  
• Second, Minnesota requires mandatory employment. Welfare recipients must participate in MFIP's employment and training activities, unless they are working 30 hours a week, have children under the age of 1, or qualify for one of the enumerated exemptions under the statute. These activities, along with frequent contact with MFIP case managers and the potential for a 10% or 30% sanction for noncompliance, are designed to encourage participants to work.
  
• Third, Minnesota offers direct child-care payments to assist participants in making the transition into the workforce. Unlike the former AFDC system in which participants paid child care costs up-front and then sought reimbursement, MFIP pays child care costs directly to the provider when a recipient works or participates in MFIP employment and training activities. Participants may also be eligible for medical assistance through MinnesotaCare. These child and medical care benefits are available to low-income families with children until their total incomes are almost 20% above the poverty line or until the 60-month lifetime limit is reached.
  
• Fourth, MFIP combined AFDC, Minnesota's Family General Assistance and Food Stamps into a single program, thereby simplifying public assistance rules and procedures.
  
• Finally, there is a 60-month lifetime limit for receiving money through MFIP.

Overall Results of MFIP to Date

Under the MFIP pilot program, 52 percent of long-term urban participants moved from welfare to work after 18 months. As of November 1998, five months after MFIP went statewide, 29 percent (14,000) of Minnesota's recipients were working. Under the previous system, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), only 10 percent of recipients were working. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), about 47,500 families received assistance through MFIP as of May 1998. About 26,000 MFIP participants were receiving employment services in July 1998, according to the State Department of Economic Security, which oversees the MFIP program. According to the Star Tribune, the number of recipients has decreased by 27 percent since 1996. It is estimated that the state's welfare roster includes 120,000 children.

III. Findings of Conference Participants

With respect to MFIP's success in achieving its broad goals, the 120 Summit participants made the following evaluation by voting via electronic keypads during the Welfare Summit:

Welfare-to-Work conference participants also divided into small "break out" groups to evaluate particular aspects of MFIP. These small groups included the policy and planning group, the employer issues group, the welfare experiences group, the social services group, the workforce training group and the research group. In evaluating MFIP, these groups made numerous findings (see Appendix A).

Participants identified barriers that have prevented MFIP from achieving its stated goals and that have prevented MFIP participants from attaining economic stability. Many of the groups' findings are supported by existing research while other findings shed new light on areas that have been under-researched or not researched at all. The commonly expressed view that MFIP's success is impeded by external obstacles facing participants is widely documented. Although MFIP has been successful in reducing welfare caseloads, the Manpower Research Demonstration Corporation estimates that one-third of MFIP recipients have at least one significant barrier to employment, and one-sixth of MFIP recipients have multiple barriers. MFIP's success in meeting its goals is dependent upon its success in addressing these barriers. Following is a discussion of the key barriers that participants in the Welfare to Work Summit identified.

A. EDUCATION/ JOB TRAINING

Education and Job Training Background

A key component of MFIP is the provision of education and job training for participants. Attendance at training meetings and consultation with financial workers are required of participants in order to prepare them for job placement. Participants who aren't exempt from this requirement under the law first attend an orientation meeting where they discuss employment goals and generally have the opportunity to meet with potential employers; then they develop a plan with financial workers for finding a job that should match their skills set. Although the education and job training component of MFIP varies widely from county to county, it means that participants spend a certain number of hours every week readying themselves for employment and complying with their plan. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services' Report on Sanctions in the Statewide MFIP Program, 70% of all Employment Services providers required a weekly attendance of four hours or less. Despite the central role of training and these requirements, the majority of conference attendees felt that MFIP's provisions of job training and education has not been successful. Similarly, the consensus of the small groups at the conference was that the education and job training component is part of "What's Not" working.

Different reasons for the shortcomings were offered, and suggestions for improving education and training were shared. Members of the Policy and Planning Group stated that there are inadequate resources for counselors and staff. In fact, the Minnesota Department of Human Services recently reported, in the Report on Sanctions in the Statewide MFIP Program, that converting participants from AFDC to MFIP has backed up service providers for many months. Providers have had to convert participants from the old program to the new one, while spending a lot of time initiating participants to education and job-training programs.

Another reason offered to explain the lack of success in the education and job training component of MFIP is that Employment Services providers and financial workers may not be learning from each other, since there is little follow-up with participants once they enter the workforce.

Other conference participants voiced concern that the assessment of participants up-front has not been working. Employment Services providers with average caseloads around 100 (according to the Report on Sanctions in the Statewide MFIP Program) are too burdened to effectively assess participants at the beginning of their relationship and may not be meeting the individual needs of participants as a result. The Star Tribune reported that the size of caseloads for vocational counselors in Minnesota had increased sixfold by June of 1998. This is an area that needs improvement if the goals of MFIP are to be met. The program may have been designed to expect and reward work, but that work can only sustain participants if it is geared toward their needs and abilities, with an orientation to the individual which should be built upon a sensitive and focused initial assessment of each participant.

Helping the hard-to-employ was identified as another failing of MFIP by conference participants. The Welfare Experiences Group stated that participants who lack skills are not making it in the current program. The Employer Issues Group, who pointed out that there is a large gap in the areas of skills and literacy that needs to be filled, echoed this sentiment. According to Work in Progress: Federal Welfare Reform in Minnesota, 29% of MFIP participants have less than a high school degree, 57% have a high school degree, 14% have some college training, and only 2% have a college degree. These statistics on education help to explain the skills gap that job training and education services are meant to improve.

The skills gap can also be understood by looking at the barriers to job retention that may have had an impact on participants in the past, leaving them now with fewer skills acquired on the job than other potential employees and less extensive or less positive work histories than others. These barriers are difficult for current participants seeking jobs to overcome because "60% of employers surveyed required references from previous employers and 40% required prior work experiences" (Urban Institute, "Job Prospects for Welfare Recipients: Employers Speak Out"). In addition, poor references from prior employers are frequently the result of circumstances beyond the control of participants, since complications like unstable housing and lack of child care impede all low-income families.

One promising development in the area of skills and job training was the stated willingness of employers who participated in the Welfare to Work Summit to supplement MFIP job training with on-site training. This kind of partnership between private employers and Employment Services could mean a greater movement of unskilled or low-skilled participants into jobs; coordinated training by both could improve the success rate of the job training and education component of MFIP.

The Workforce Training group at the conference cautioned that many employers need more education about MFIP in order to understand their role as employers and trainers of first-time and special-needs employees. Employers could improve their ability to train and retain participant-employees by knowing that: As of 1995, 60% of participants had worked at a job for only six months or longer; 40% had worked in the last year; and 10% of participants had never worked (Work in Progress: Federal Welfare Reform in Minnesota).

Employers of participants should also be aware of the barriers to job retention present in the lives of many participants -- and the fact that many MFIP participants experience multiple barriers to employment. Sensitivity to the complex employment needs of MFIP participants could help employers create training programs that will increase job tenure and generally further the stated goals of MFIP. To accomplish this, members of the Strategies for the Hard-to-Employ Group recommended using more intermediaries with greater cultural sensitivity, networking capabilities and mentoring capacities. This group also suggested the establishment of business-to-business support groups.

B. NATURE OF EMPLOYMENT MARKET

The changing nature of the job market in Minnesota and nationally has both positive and negative implications for the success of MFIP. Many conference participants attributed a significant portion of the reduction of MFIP rolls to the strong economy in Minnesota and the nation. According to the Minnesota Department of Economic Security, "The strength of the job market has driven unemployment rates to record lows, producing seasonally-adjusted unemployment rates below 3 percent . . . [for] the first time in the history of the unemployment series." At the same time, new jobs created often do not provide the resources and stability that MFIP participants need to achieve economic stability.

The nature of the employment market and MFIP's emphasis on quick job placement rather than on long-term training mean that more MFIP participants are working, but not at sustaining jobs. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities stated the problem succinctly: "[R]ecipients who are placed in [these entry-level jobs] are paid low wages, receive few if any benefits, and often are forced to work part-time. Recipients often lack the education and job-specific skills needed to move on to better jobs, and employers typically will train mid- and upper-level staff rather than entry-level workers."

Because these jobs do not provide the wages, benefits or other work supports to sustain a family, staying in an entry-level job means that a participant will not move out of poverty and may even fall deeper into poverty. The participant will be expected, as benefits phase out, to carry the burden of paying for child-care, transportation to a job likely located in the suburbs, and health care. Many conference participants recognized that the goals of MFIP are not legitimately attainable if jobs don't provide a living wage to workers.

According to "The State of Welfare Caseloads in America's Cities," ongoing obstacles to successfully employing welfare participants include a lack of supportive services to assist them in making the transition from welfare to work. The Coordination and Funding of Auxiliary Services group recommended that these obstacles could be removed if employment and transition plans were made holistically: with consideration of housing, transportation, child care, and other needs.

A holistic approach is crucial because of the compound, unique challenges facing MFIP participants. Work in Progress: Federal Welfare Reform in Minnesota reported that 40% of participants surveyed had no mode of transportation to get to work everyday. Housing and health issues were also mentioned as obstacles to work in a survey conducted by Kids Count Minnesota.

Child care in particular has come to the fore as an area in which improvement is needed. This is because the majority of participants need child care support in order to work, and because participants more often need child care during nontraditional hours. Kids Count Minnesota reported that parents have relied on unstable or no child care arrangements in order to comply with MFIP work requirements. The Minnesota Department of Planning estimates that by 2002 child care may be needed for 35,000 more children than are now served. There is a great demand for child care on the part of MFIP participants, and the data on waiting list periods and slots needed now suggest that this need is not being met. However, good news comes in the form of greatly increased child-care budgets in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties.

C. SPATIAL ISSUES

Despite a strong economy and low levels of unemployment in Minnesota, participants at the Welfare to Work Summit agreed on the difficulty of finding livable wage jobs in locations that are close to affordable housing, and that the lack of adequate transportation only heightens this problem. Ample research supports this observation. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), "the spatial mismatch factor has intensified in recent years, with more welfare recipients concentrated in inner-city areas and with economic restructuring that has caused a shift of employment from the inner city to the suburbs." Minnesota is no exception to this trend.

Citing job location and transportation as the central dilemma for welfare reform, Ron White, senior planning analyst for Hennepin County noted that "75 percent of welfare recipients live in the city and 75 percent of the jobs are in the suburbs." According to the Department of Economic Security, "[j]ob growth outside the Twin Cities has continued to outpace job growth in the Twin Cities through most of the 1990s. In addition much of Minnesota's job growth is occurring outside of the metropolitan area. As of mid-1997, Greater Minnesota accounted for 38.9% of all jobs in the state, surpassing its 1983 share." Since 1991, Greater Minnesota has gained nearly 30,000 manufacturing jobs, compared to 8,000 in the Twin Cities.

Lack of Transportation

Welfare to Work summit participants identified inadequate access to transportation as a major barrier to entering the workforce. Similarly, in a qualitative study by the Children's Defense Fund designed to identify MFIP problem areas, 14 of 20 respondents listed transportation as one of the major barriers to employment success. Even among respondents who owned cars, gas and insurance costs proved to be a major expense relative to their low wages. Work in Progress: Federal Welfare Reform in Minnesota found that 40% of welfare clients surveyed in Minnesota reported that they had no mode of transportation to get to work. According to the 1990 census, 57,000 households in Minneapolis and St. Paul have no vehicle.

The transportation barrier is not peculiar to Minnesota. On a national level, DHHS found that housing for most welfare families is located in areas of concentrated poverty and isolated from transportation systems and employment opportunities. DHHS also found that 43% of welfare households nationally do not own a car. Local figures are consistent with this national picture.

D. RACIAL/ETHNIC ISSUES

The Employer and Social Services Groups at the Welfare-to-Work Summit identified issues related to race and ethnicity issues as barriers to welfare reform. The participants noted that employers need cultural and diversity awareness. The participants also noted that racism should be curbed in the administration of social services, and efforts should be made to provide social service material in different languages. Although welfare rolls are declining nationwide, fewer minorities are leaving the rolls compared to whites. Furthermore, immigrants experience unique barriers under the new welfare system, and language barriers pose a significant impediment to success for non-English speaking populations.

Fewer Minorities Leaving Welfare

The New York Times reported that "[a]s the welfare rolls continue to plunge, white recipients are leaving the system much faster than black and Hispanic recipients, pushing the minority share of the caseload to the highest level on record." Indeed, blacks outnumber whites on the welfare rolls, and Hispanics are the largest growing number of minorities on the welfare rolls. Black and Hispanic recipients combined outnumber whites by 2 to 1. This trend holds in Minnesota where people of color represent the largest portion of the welfare population and are leaving welfare much more slowly than whites:

• People of color represent over 60% of single-parent MFIP participants in the metro region. Native Americans represent thirty-percent of single-parent MFIP participants in northwest Minnesota. Hispanics represent the largest minority group of MFIP participants in both central and southwestern Minnesota.
• Between 1994 and 1998, Whites experienced a greater decrease in welfare participation than Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. (MFIP Ethnic Reports).

Making the transition to economic stability is particularly difficult for immigrant groups for a number of reasons. One is that immigrants are given less protection and fewer resources under MFIP. As of 1997, according to Kids Count Minnesota, Minnesota could deny $16 million each year in state and federal assistance to about 9,000 currently legal immigrants. Refugees and those seeking asylum will be eligible for MFIP for their first five years in the United States, after which time the state can decide to deny MFIP to refugees and those seeking asylum. Only legal immigrants who are U.S. veterans or who have met the 10-year work requirement will be eligible for benefits on par with citizens.

• In Minnesota, weak English language skills are one of the top three major barriers to successful employment and getting off the rolls, according to Work in Progress: Federal Welfare Reform in Minnesota.
  
• The Institute for the Study of Civic Values reports that recipients themselves are concerned about their opportunities and cite "language" as a barrier to opportunities.
  
• As a solution to this problem, the Institute for the Study of Civic Values suggests that "ESL programs, particularly for citizens outside the refugee services network, need to be expanded. In addition, many limited English speakers' worlds are circumscribed by contact only with people from their background. Learning English must necessarily involve expanding social worlds to become comfortable using English and to understand the diversity of the workplace and this country."
  

E. THE CULTURE OF THE SYSTEM

Caseload Management Issues Were Central to Discussion of MFIP's Efficacy
Many MFIP participants at the Summit expressed the view that "The system is not the participant's friend." Participants expressed the feeling that they were being coldly run through the welfare system with little concern for their interests and well-being. Small groups at the Welfare to Work Summit came to the consensus that a significant cause of this is the size of caseloads, and the related amount of paperwork, that county workers must manage. The Star-Tribune reported in June of 1998 that the size of caseloads for workers in Anoka County had doubled. The Welfare-to-Work Strategies group meeting in the afternoon recommended cutting caseloads and paperwork to a third of the size it is now.

The effects of overburdening workers with caseloads include:

• Participants who "enter the workforce are often poorly informed about when to leave a job, why to leave a job, and how to transport their work experiences into new areas," according to "Job Retention and Career Advancement for Welfare Recipients."
  
• Inadequate time for the worker and the participant to discuss exemptions and transitional benefits.
  
• The possibility that caseworkers will feel compelled to "cream," as Legal Aid Attorney Shawn Fremstad stated in "A Guide to the Statewide Minnesota Family Investment Program": to place skilled participants in jobs quickly and focus fewer resources on "more difficult cases." According to "The State of Welfare in America's Cities": The most work-ready people are being placed in the available jobs, while the least work-ready remain on the rolls or in workfare jobs with little promise as the welfare clocks continue to tick.

In light of these concerns, reducing the number of cases that each worker must manage is the logical solution, and should gear the program toward its goal of truly changing the lives of MFIP participants in the long-run.

The Goals and Values group at the Welfare-to-Work conference recommended that MFIP be transformed from a set of rules to a dialogue: asking, listening and following up. This overarching principle should apply to the philosophy of caseworkers when placing participants in job settings. This dialogue could help workers find not the first, but the best available job for the participant. Such a reorientation could also allow for participants to focus on the education and training that make long-term economic stability possible rather than quick fixes to short-term needs. In this way, participants have a better chance of retaining a job, possibly advancing at a workplace, and eventually moving off of welfare.

For now, the "quick attachment to the labor market" theory seems to dominate, a theory under which participants are placed into jobs quickly without substantial focus on the long-term viability of employment. The result is contrary to the MFIP's goals of reducing poverty -- participants who are ill fitted to jobs will likely not retain jobs, and will probably need financial and medical assistance for longer periods of time.

Punitive Nature of Program: Sanctions Impact Participants with Barriers

In order to meet the stated goals of MFIP, the program "expects work" but fails to account for the many barriers that prevent participants from working. This expectation of work translates into sanctions for participants who fail to comply with their employment plans. A study by the Department of Human Services reported that participants facing "significant family and personal challenges" are sanctioned at higher rates than other participants:

Mental Health Barriers: 9.6% of MFIP cases 20% of all sanctioned cases
Chemical Dependency: 4% of MFIP cases 16% of all sanctioned cases
Families with at Least
At Least One Challenge: 35% of MFIP cases 76% of all sanctioned cases

CONCLUSION

During the planning stages and through the Welfare to Work Summit, scores of questions arose. Among them were questions that every policy maker, researcher, journalist and welfare to work stakeholder should be asking. Some of the most compelling are below:

• What are the ultimate goals of welfare to work? Is it sufficient just to get people to go work? Should there be more holistic, long-term goals for the families affected?
• Is the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) and are other national welfare to work projects helping or hurting children in the long run? What happens to kids left at home after they reach the age when they no longer fit into day care? Are accommodations being made for kids 11 years old and up?
• Just how much say should recipients have in the future direction of welfare to work systems; and how do their voices get heard?
• How is the system addressing systematic racism and cultural differences, especially as experienced by immigrants? What happens to older immigrants who just can't learn the language?
• Why are white people are moving off the welfare roles at a rate faster than people of color? What strategies will encourage more success among minorities?
• How far from a one-size-fits-all system do we move toward a customized system that takes into account the individualized needs of the welfare clients?
• When are community-based agencies more effective than government run agencies?
• Is the national welfare to work initiative just a way to subsidize employers by forcing people to take low wage jobs? If people on welfare are forced to work, should employers be forced to pay living wages with a good range of benefits?
• What do we do for people and families who have addiction, mental health and/or domestic violence problems?
• What about the fathers; what is their role in welfare to work planning?
• What is happening now and what will happen in the future to individuals, families and children when parents don't meet the work requirements and are sanctioned?
• What are the special needs in rural areas?
• Do the states, counties and municipalities have a public works plan in place to provide work if the economy takes a quick turn for the worse?

Not surprisingly, the questions are easier to formulate than the answers. More than two years have passed since welfare reform legislation was put into effect. The next few years will tell the tale of whether we have been successful in helping women transition from welfare to work. Only through continuous improvement of existing programs can we possibly meet the ambitious goals set by federal and state legislators. We believe the information revealed at the Welfare Summit will be valuable to all who are committed to making welfare-to-work a winning proposition for all involved.

APPENDIX A: NOTES FROM WELFARE SUMMIT SMALL GROUP MEETINGS

During the morning session of the summit, Express Interactive Solutions moderated an evaluation of MFIP using keypad technology. Participants were then grouped together as similarly-situated stakeholders focused on: Welfare Experiences, Employer Issues, Policy and Planning, Social Services, Auxiliary Services, Recipient Advocacy, Workforce Training, and Research and asked to elaborate upon "What's Working, What's Not and Why."

COMMON FINDINGS OF SMALL GROUPS:

What's Working What's Not

* Dialogue * Education and Training
* Collaboration * Living Wage Jobs
* Work Expectation Empowers * Job Retention
* Job Placement for Some * Child Care Supply
Participants * Spatial Mismatch and
* Housing No Affordable Transportation
* Helping the Hard to Employ
* Parts of the System Itself,
e.g. Respecting Recipients, Large
Caseloads, Excessive Paperwork
* Involving Fathers

Why

* Lack of Integration, Money, Time, Data, Public Relations
* Racism, Sexism, Classism, Language and Cultural Barriers

PANEL PRESENTATIONS OF GROUP FINDINGS:

1. Policy and Planning:

* Political and community support for "go to work" message.
* Creativity of the private sector.
* A reduction in barriers through: increased retained earnings, child-care assistance, earned income tax credit.
* Many partners focusing on the issue is improving the way various sectors relate.
* State policy in place to reduce poverty and invest in the infrastructure.

* Packaging economic and social programs and getting the word out.
* Inadequate resources for counselors and other staff.
* Inadequate technology to support the system's collaboratives.
* People being sanctioned don't seem too concerned about it.
* Planners made assumptions, but participants make unanticipated choices.
* Market-driven economy doesn't get people out of poverty.
* Lack of affordable housing.

2. Employer Issues:

* Developing pre-job training for specific job opportunities.
* Mentoring within work experience. Purposeful use of elders.
* Specifying "task" and "social support" and allowing "local" tailoring.
* Building relationships.
* Knowledge sharing, industry and cross-industry benchmarking and best practices
sharing.

* Scarcity of potential employees. Inflexibility of employers.
* Big gaps in skills & literacy yet to be filled. Can't make generalizations.
* Differences in understanding of what "job skills" mean between employer/employee.
* Employers must take greater responsibility to secure auxiliary services.
* Cultural fears and diversity awareness and sensitivity training.
* Experiential training.
* Hiring someone to fit them into a job. Rather, employers must create a job at which the
employee will succeed.
* Specialization. Unwillingness to move beyond "we're good at what we do."

3. Welfare Experiences:

* Better financial incentives.
* Motivating people to get out of the welfare system.
* More women working outside the home. Less isolation.
* Good coverage in the media of success stories and the difficulties.
* More employers reaching out to communities.

* System is not participants' friend.
* Women carry the burden.
* Participants without skills and supports not making it.
* Inadequate transitional supports.
* Penalty for success. Punishment for self-reporting.
* MFIP child care dollars segregated from sliding scale dollars.

4. Social Services/Auxiliary Services/Recipient Advocacy

* Employers willing to help with needs-based training.
* Job placement, especially rural Minnesota.
* Innovative automobile purchasing experiments.
* Some banks providing easier mortgage access.
* Some perception of public support of MFIP.

* Culture of the system needs changing.
* Efforts to curb racism.
* Providing materials in different languages.
* Up front assessments when participants meet with counselors.
* Sanctioned clients getting lost.
* Location of jobs too far from urban centers.
* No safety net when the five-year clock ends -- and what is there is eroding.
* Lack of data. Specifically, the proportion of dollars spent on administrative costs, as well as the number and adequacy of
child-care slots.

5. Workforce Training

* People are finding jobs. This is partly due to a good economy, a national focus, training directives, job search assistance, many more employment services, corporate tax credits, child-care assistance, and the fact that MFIP is no longer an "entitlement" program.
* There are more role models now.

* When work is begun, participant can wind up with less assistance and in a deeper hole. More assistance is needed for energy and phone bills, prioritizing and long-term coaching.
* Transition time. It takes much longer than one year to find a job that fits and to develop "soft" employment skills.
* Inflexibility of employers. Employers don't feel it is their job to train employees, or don't understand what it is like to have one's first job. Employers' value systems need to change.
* Employers and community are not educated in the process; it's hard for them to change.

6. Research

Rather than focusing on what's working and what's not, researchers outlined what research was still needed.

* Five-year Department of Human Services undertaking. Two thousand families on MFIP are being studied.
* The Urban Institute's study of the effects of welfare reform on children in a dozen states. Baseline data is in place and data will be coming back at stated intervals. Paid for locally.

* More data, more research and more funding.
* A holistic approach to fashioning a research agenda. Rather than looking at one part of the issue, this agenda must examine values and provide an overarching framework for research that is useful to all those involved, especially participants of MFIP.
* Identification of the key issues to study with a focus on children, race and space, and the working poor.
* An overall tracking system.
* Coordination of research efforts. Often, researchers are unaware of each other's work.
* A consensus as to what to do with research and how to implement any recommendations.

During the afternoon session of the Summit, small groups of mixed stakeholders were asked: "Where do we go from here?" Each group was assigned a specific area upon which to focus and given the following questions with which to generate the three recommended action steps listed below.

1. What do we really want the welfare system to accomplish in our society?
2. How do we ensure a public discussion of these underlying goals and values?

* Develop an overall goal of the welfare system beyond a set of rules through asking, listening, and following up.
* Increase family stability and financial security by raising people out of poverty.
* Work with participants to improve job skills.

1. What must policy makers do to ensure that welfare-to-work efforts improve in the future?
2. What should the specific responsibilities of city, county, and state governments be?

* Ensure that public policy is motivated by continuous improvement supported
by ongoing research, input from various stakeholders and local experimentation.
* Educate the public about the variety of situations, skills, issues that challenge participants.
* Improve literacy and education of K-12, adults and immigrants.

1. What balance is needed between going to work and gaining education and training for jobs that pay enough to sustain a family?
2. How can we ensure that "best practices" are shared throughout the state and even nation?

* Cut case loads and paperwork to a third.
* Do assessments to determine long-range career and education plans.
* Follow through on several recommendations that could ensure sharing
"best practices," including: Web sites, traveling DHS staff, forums,
talking to participants etc...

1. What resources do we need to commit to assist the "hard to employ?"
2. What must employers do differently to support this segment of the population?
* Use more intermediaries who are culturally sensitive and have networking and mentoring capabilities to work with
employers and recipients.
* Leverage the role of the community to minimize isolation and maximize
expectations of participants, promote peer pressure, and create hope.
* Develop business-to-business support groups and links to human services.

1. How can we coordinate and provide adequate auxiliary services such as child-care, transportation, health benefits, and housing?
2. How much funding do we need and how do we develop the political will to fully fund these efforts?

* Provide holistic employment and transition plans.
* Reorganize mechanics of service delivery system. Place employment counselor at the center of the transition plan
with access to support systems and flexibility to customize long-term employment plans.
* Create a working group of businesses, policy makers, government agencies and
service organizations to strategize on common interests and develop political will.

1. How should the role of employers change to improve welfare-to-work efforts, especially during the current labor shortage?
2. How can civic and religious groups collaborate more effectively to improve welfare-to-work efforts, especially during this period of devolution?

* Encourage employers to come together in industrial or geographic clusters to
solve employment barriers.
* Address disconnections between systems -- county, city, education and training,
non-profit, employers and social service.
* Encourage employers to contribute to ongoing training for entry-level employees.

1. Why are whites getting of rolls quicker than blacks and Hispanics? How do we respond?
2. What strategies need to be employed to facilitate the transition from welfare to work among communities of color? Immigrant communities? Migrant communities?

* Provide cultural training for policy makers, providers, employers and community.
* Provide basic education, more stable housing and livable wage jobs that accommodate the skills of the various
communities.
* Support efforts to organize and coordinate efforts among community groups.

1. How can we create the public understanding and will for long-term success in welfare-to-work?
2. How can we transform the public conversation from "welfare-to-work" to "economic growth and community stability?"

* Articulate a positive and accurate message to the entire community. Highlight the benefits of providing livable wage
education, child care, transportation
and family development.
* Create and use mechanisms for feedback through dialogues at all levels.
* Increase civic involvement -- especially of those directly affected by welfare policy.