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STRATEGIC GOAL 3:
INCREASE THE HEALTH AND PROSPERITY OF COMMUNITIES AND TRIBES
Rationale
Strong neighborhoods and communities are essential in creating healthy environments for children and families. Research reveals a significant relationship between the quality of community life and the well-being of residents. Living in distressed neighborhoods is associated with negative impacts on early childhood development, educational attainment, and health, as well as higher rates of violence, infant mortality, substance abuse, and out-of-wedlock teen parenthood. ACF programs contribute to the goal of increasing the health and prosperity of communities and Tribes by strengthening local community partnerships, improving civic participation, increasing community development investments, and working with Tribes and Native American communities to build capacity and infrastructure for social and economic development and self-sufficiency.
ACF supports activities that create jobs in economically disadvantaged communities, that help communities develop comprehensive service networks to provide community supports for local residents, and that empower residents to leverage local assets and address their needs. ACF assists communities to develop economically and enable low-income individuals to get work through a number of initiatives. For example, the Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community (EZ/EC) initiative, in cooperation with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, provides substantial funding and technical assistance for community development corporations and other organizations to create new business and employment opportunities.
These programs help low-income families, including many leaving TANF cash assistance, succeed and advance at work. In isolated urban low-income communities, immigrant neighborhoods and rural areas separated from labor markets, organizations which have a stake in those communities serve as an indispensable link between low-income parents struggling to become self-sufficient and find jobs and employers and public agencies offering needed services and support. These community-based organizations have identified innovative and promising roles for community-level agencies to create employment opportunities and assist low-income families to succeed at work. Building on years of experience within the communities, activities are focused on partnering with State TANF, Medicaid, labor, and human services agencies to connect low-income working families with a full range of supports and career development possibilities.
A request for $89 million will establish a Compassion Capital Fund to support the creation of public/private partnerships that would provide start-up capital and operating funds to qualified charitable organizations that wish to expand or emulate model social services programs. The Compassion Capital Fund will also support and promote research on "best practices" among charitable organizations. Funds will be used to assess and document successful models that could be emulated or expanded by entities that are recipients of the Compassion Capital Fund.
Many DHHS programs vital to this goal are implemented by State, local, and non-governmental agencies. Several other Federal Departments and agencies manage projects for strengthening community-based efforts and creating economic opportunity for residents of distressed communities. In addition, the Nation's overall economic climate, and that of particular geographic regions, is a major factor in the Department's ability to achieve this strategic objective.
The Community Services Block Grant, the Social Services Block Grant, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and the programs of the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) are administered directly by States and Tribal governments. Numerous agencies throughout DHHS have responsibilities for achieving parts of this strategic objective. ACF, Administration on Aging, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and individual offices within the Office of the Secretary, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, contribute to the effort.
ACF assists community organizations to gain access to DHHS programs supporting comprehensive, coordinated community services. Community service programs, such as the Family Violence Prevention Program, the Community Services Block Grant program, Healthy Start, Mental Health Services for Children and the Aging Network, are encouraged to build coordinated service networks. ACF promotes the involvement of community residents as active partners in developing and implementing local programs and services through community service programs, such as the Community Services Block Grant Program, HIV prevention programs in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Administration for Native Americans.
In addition, numerous other Federal agencies, such as the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Justice, Education, Commerce, and Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Small Business Administration, are involved in related work. DHHS coordinates and collaborates with these entities.
The objectives and major program areas for this goal are:
8.Build healthy, safe and supportive communities and Tribes
- Community Services Block Grant
- Family Violence Prevention Program
- Low-Income Home Energy Assistance
- Native Americans Programs
8. Build healthy, safe and supportive communities and Tribes
Approach for the Strategic Objective: Strengthen local communities through community partnerships and improving civic participation; and increase community development investments so that families can lead healthy, safe and productive lives. Work with Tribes and Native American communities to develop strategies and programs to promote social and economic development and self-sufficiency.
8.1 COMMUNITY SERVICES BLOCK GRANT
Program Description, Content, Legislative Intent, and Program Goals
The purpose of the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program is to provide a range of services and activities having a measurable and potentially major impact on causes of poverty in the community. The CSBG Act requires States to pass through 90% of the Federal funds allocated to eligible entities, which in most cases are Community Action Agencies (CAAs). These programs support community-based organizations in meeting the challenge of helping people succeed at work.
Results-Oriented Management and Accountability (ROMA): Prior to passage of GPRA, ACF was already in the process of developing a monitoring and technical assistance strategy which focused on increasing the capacity of local agencies to increase program performance toward achieving results. ACF established a task force composed of CSBG State directors, CAA directors and relevant association members, including representatives from Head Start, to oversee this responsibility. The purpose of this task force was to develop and implement a strategy for strengthening the capacity of CSBG agencies and local CAAs to focus on improved program performance and better results for low-income people. The major strategy of ROMA is to allow community-based agencies to develop their own objectives and activities based on periodic assessments of community needs and resources. It is a way to continuously revitalize, energize and measure results obtained by the partnerships on the local, State and Federal levels.
ROMA evolved from a need to develop a goal oriented framework with State partners, which binds and holds accountable a local network of community action agencies in a standardized way yet allows them the flexibility to develop their own processes and outcomes in keeping with local preferences and State objectives. This is a major cultural shift for all levels because it redefines the roles of each. The emphasis since 1996 has been on developing the capacity to contain a results-oriented structure on all levels rather than just a data management system. ROMA data for FY 1997 were reported for the first time last year as States moved from a service categorization to an outcome orientation.
ROMA is a management practice that incorporates the use of outcomes or results into the administration, management, and operation of human services. It provides a framework of national goals at the family, community and agency levels for a flexible transition to an outcome orientation and an opportunity to create and use a variety of indicators for local community action agencies. ROMA encompasses: (1) a menu of outcome-oriented measures which leave maximum flexibility at the local level; (2) implementation tools for measuring incremental successes and assessing agency capacity such as scales and self-assessment matrices; (3) electronically-provided economic and demographic data mapping at the neighborhood level for conducting community needs assessment and planning; (4) training and technical assistance plans to ensure timely phasing of the total approach; and (5) reporting compatible with local, State and Federal need for information.
Program Activities, Strategies and Resources
From the beginning, ACF has viewed GPRA as an opportunity to improve program performance toward better outcomes at State and local levels. In FY 1996 and FY 1997, percentages of the CSBG funds designated for training, technical assistance, planning, evaluation and data collection were awarded to States and localities in support of GPRA. These funds and others from State and local levels support training at national, State and regional association conferences; development and use of special implementation tools such as manuals; scales for incremental measurement at the individual, family and community levels; surveys and survey methodology; electronically-provided economic and demographic mapping data at the neighborhood level; revision of reporting tools; and specific on-site consultative technical assistance efforts.
Program Coordination, Partnerships and Crosscutting Issues
ROMA involves extensive work with partners. As an example, a major impediment to ROMA implementation is the difficulty agencies have in coordinating programs and client efforts across programs when these programs have separate incompatible databases. For community action agencies, some of which may operate as many as 50 programs with their own specific requirements, trying to work with clients toward outcomes in separate programs and track client success over time involves technology challenges. To address this issue, the national Monitoring and Assessment Task Force (MATF) created the Managing Multiple Data Base Project in response to this concern expressed by local agencies, States and other partners, The first report was presented to the MATF in July 2000.
Program-wide Performance
The Community Services Block Grant Program continues to support an array of services and activities to assist low-income individuals, including persons transitioning from welfare, the elderly, the homeless and migrants, to achieve individual and family self-sufficiency. The CSBG Program is carried out through the States and Community Action Agencies based on community needs assessments. CSBG awards were made to the 50 States, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, U.S. Territories, and 61 Indian Tribes and tribal organizations.
The national Monitoring and Assessment Task Force and OCS continue to provide technical assistance and support to States to implement ROMA. Work is underway on several fronts: (1) to develop and implement a community scale project to measure civic and social capital development; (2) to continue to provide technical assistance for the statewide implementation of ROMA in the form of statewide partnership grants; (3) to strengthen the capacity of State CAA Associations through 5-year grants awarded (now in their second year) to all CAA State Associations; (4) to assist eligible entities through special State technical assistance grants to address complex problems which prevent such entities from meeting performance goals and implementing ROMA; and (5) to insure that all States began some phase of implementation of ROMA. The ROMA Guide training tool, mailed to all States and community action agencies, is now available on the website for use by other community-based agencies. A project group has been formed to document the database management issues commonly faced by local community action agencies that typically operate at least five databases to handle the multiple system demands of funding requirements.
Program-wide performance indicates that sixty percent of the States and half of the 1000 CAAs are actively engaged in implementing ROMA. These States have demonstrated progress in (1) working on program improvement initiatives; (2) using a mix of the six national goals to report CAA outcomes; (3) revitalizing data collection and reporting; (4) embracing ROMA training of State staff, CAA staff and board members; and (5) developing approaches to collecting and reporting experiences in using performance measures.
There is considerable variation in the kinds of measures used by States for activities supporting the six national goals. The six goals are:
- Low-income people become more self-sufficient;
- Conditions in which low-income people live are improved;
- Low-income people own a stake in their community;
- Partnerships among supporters and providers of services to low-income people are achieved;
- Agencies increase their capacity to achieve results; and
- Low-income people, especially vulnerable populations, achieve their potential by strengthening family and other supportive systems.
The National MATF Task Force continues to develop guidance to assist States to implement ROMA and to overcome the challenges faced in measuring, aggregating and defining data from CAAs in order to address the ROMA national goals. As part of a comprehensive training, technical assistance and capacity strategy the Office of Community Services has supported (1) the development of a ROMA Guide; (2) a ROMA website; (3) peer-to-peer TA and State ROMA implementation grants; and (4) training at National and State conferences of the Community Services network.
Trend data for previous years: FY 1996-1998 show improvement in one of the performance measures, the amount of non-Federal resources brought into low-income communities by the Community Services Network. There was a slight decrease in the number of volunteer hours contributed by CSBG consumers. Both of these measures are directly related to the fund-raising efforts of the Network. The local Network's involvement in implementing TANF required CAAs to provide an increased role in assisting low-income individuals to transition from welfare to work. They also expanded their provision of on-going supportive services to assist in both retention and advancement in employment for individuals who had obtained work. Our analysis indicates that the provision of these increased services and activities for the working poor within each State accounts for the increase in additional funds leveraged. The slight decrease in the number of volunteer hours contributed may be the result of more individuals working with less time to volunteer.
State Reports on FY 1999 CSBG data were submitted in March 2000; data are still undergoing analysis and validation and, therefore, is not ready for release. Reports on CSBG performance data for FY 1999 are expected to be available July 2001 and a report on the FY 2000 data will be available July 2002. For FY 1999 and FY 2000, ROMA implementation has been voluntary; however, in accordance with the CSBG Statute, ROMA became mandatory effective 2001. It is anticipated that future data will be more current as a result of this legislative requirement.
Data Issues
The data reported here have been gathered by the CSBG Information System (CSBG/IS) survey, a voluntary reporting effort by the States administered by the National Association for State Community Services Programs (NASCSP) and supported by the Office of Community Services, ACF. There are lags in collecting data in a block grant program. However, the CSBG/IS under ROMA is revising its survey to request fewer data elements in order to speed up the timeliness of the reporting process.
Until now, CSBG data collection has been a part of the T&TA strategy, i.e., information gathered from a survey which is needed by States to revise their overall training and technical assistance strategies. OCS has found ways to encourage more States to cooperatively buy into a low cost method of collecting data. States that receive only 5% of the CSBG funds for staff and administration cannot afford to purchase information system technology. Therefore, many of the State reports are simply local level reports bound together. Reporting on outcome measures has placed the States in the position of needing to report by goal, not service and requires more sophisticated higher cost technology. Because of GPRA, OCS needs to begin collecting its own data and not be dependent on data gathered by an association for a different purpose.
| Performance Measures | Targets | Actual Performance |
Reference (page # in printed document) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PROGRAM GOAL: Ensure that low-income people have a stake in their community. | ||||
| 8.1a. Increase by 1% over the previous year the number of volunteer hours contributed by CSBG consumers in one or more community groups. (expressed in million of hours) | FY
02: 27.4 FY 01: 27.13* FY 00: 28.93 FY 99: 28.64 |
FY
02: FY 01: FY 00: 7/02 FY 99: 7/01 FY 98: 26.86** FY 97: 27* FY 96: 28.06 |
Px M-138 | |
| PROGRAM GOAL: Conditions in which low-income people live are improved. | ||||
| 8.1b. Increase by 1% over the previous year the amount of non-Federal resources brought into low-income communities by the Community Services Network (non-Federal funds mobilized expressed in billions). | FY
02: $1.68 FY 01: $1.66* FY 00: $1.38 FY 99: $1.36 |
FY
02: FY 01: FY 00: 7/02 FY 99: 7/01 FY 98: $1.64*** FY 97: $1.26*** FY 96: $1.20 |
Px: M-139 | |
| *Measure
8.1a target was decreased and 8.1b was increased based on
FY 1999 actual performance. **43 States reporting for FY 1998; 42 for FY 1997. ***49 States reporting for FY 1998; 47 for FY 1997. Availability of FY 2000 Data: Results will not be available until July 2002 for FY 2000 Performance Report due to lags in collecting data in a block grant program. |
||||
| Total Funding (dollars
in millions) See detailed Budget Linkage Table in Appendix 6 for line items included in funding totals. |
FY
02: $630.5 FY 01: $657.7 FY 00: $584.3 FY 99: $553.3 |
Bx: budget
just. section H Px: page # performance plan |
||
Performance Measures for FY 2002 and Final Measures for FY 2001
These measures were chosen as initial measures by the national Monitoring and Assessment Task Force based on critical issues that the Community Services Network viewed as central to building human, social and economic capital. This capital is important to the survival of the community agencies' organizational capacity to deliver services in an environment of dwindling resources.Measures relating to non-Federal resources leveraged and volunteer hours contributed were chosen as central to the network's mission of operating strategies and programs to alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty.
PROGRAM GOAL: Ensure that low-income people have a stake in their community.
8.1a. FY 2001: Increase by 1% over the previous year the number of volunteer hours contributed by CSBG consumers in one or more community groups. (1997 baseline: 27 million hours)
FY 2002: Increase by 1% over the previous year the number of volunteer hours contributed by CSBG consumers in one or more community groups. (1997 baseline estimate: 27 million hours)
Volunteers are necessary for most network activities and although local agencies differ based on community needs, use of volunteers is universal. The volunteer measure is critical to building social capital necessary for accomplishing ROMA goals. This volunteer measure, focusing on building skills, capabilities and relationships that enable people to act in new ways, builds the human and social capital necessary for accomplishing two ROMA goals -Low Income People Own a Stake in their Community and Conditions in which Low-Income People Live are Improved. There has been a slight decrease in the number of hours (from 27 million to 26.86), therefore ACF is undertaking a number of initiatives to get a better understanding of that decrease, e.g. State-assessments of individual States' status and identification of technical assistance needs. Additionally, ACF is sponsoring five regional conferences and a series of workshops, leadership programs and training of trainers--efforts directed at improving progress for all of the ROMA goals and measures.
PROGRAM GOAL: Use federal funds as leverage to improve conditions where low-income people live.
8.1b. FY 2001: Increase by 1% over the previous year the amount of non-Federal resources brought into low-income communities by the Community Services Network (non-Federal funds mobilized). (1997 baseline: $1.26 billion)
FY 2002: Increase by 1% over the previous year the amount of non-Federal resources brought into low-income communities by the Community Services Network (non-Federal funds mobilized). (1997 baseline: $1.26 billion)
A five year (1994-97) trend analysis of local networks' resources revealed that the decline in non-CSBG resources was due largely to the elimination or reduction of Federal funding in discretionary domestic programs for low-income individuals and communities. Many programs, historically administered by CAAs and other community-based organizations, were eliminated while others were drastically reduced. It was the steady growth in resources in all other sectors that kept the network from a precipitous loss of capacity to respond to the needs of the low-income community. The MATF selected the focus on non-Federal resources given the evidence that these resources are critical for survival and the network's tradition of leveraging CSBG dollars.
The Community Services Network initiated its own performance-based system almost six years ago in an effort to build strong foundations for continuous program improvement and accountability among State agencies, community action associations, and local community action agencies. ROMA utilizes a flexible, "bottoms-up" approach which allows wide variation in the kinds of measures reported. As part of the ongoing work with partners that is the basis of the ROMA approach, a more extensive set of goals and measures is under development and States should begin to report on a menu of measures crafted by local agencies in FY 2001. We anticipate continuous reduction and consolidation of measures by States in order for OCS to achieve aggregation of data by FY 2003. Inasmuch as ROMA is more than measurement and reporting, OCS has identified core activities as yardsticks to measure ROMA progress among States and local agencies and as focal points for State plan approval, compliance monitoring and program reporting. States and eligible entities are encouraged to use these core ROMA activities to assess their own ROMA progress and to identify what work needs to be done to complete their efforts by FY 2003. OCS will help States to conduct such assessments in FY 2001. Training and technical assistance support will be targeted to help States and local agencies conduct these activities that constitute basic ROMA implementation.
As part of the ongoing work with partners that is the basis of the ROMA approach, a more extensive set of goals and measures is under discussion. Beginning in 1998, more than half the States began using and reporting on a broad range of family, community and agency goals. Scales have been developed as a tool to measure incremental progress in family and community outcomes and agency processes toward achieving these goals. By so doing, States can measure intermediate outcomes and a common language can be used and understood by all partners--Federal, State and community. Not all States have reached the same level, but at least 25 States are reporting on "community" outcomes; 24 on "agency capacity" outcomes and 27 on "family" outcomes.
Much experimentation is underway on community measures. Examples under development include: "increase the number of participants enrolled in educational and literacy programs who attend regularly;" and, "increase the amount of property tax generated as a result of rehabilitation projects." As the Network gains more experience and sophistication in determining the most appropriate measures toward obtaining community revitalization results, we anticipate that some of these measures will be considered for inclusion in future performance plans.
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